House of the Dragon

Those let down by the limp finale of Game of Thrones will be pleased that this rousing prequel starts with women seizing their own agency against a toxic patriarchy. And those dragons soaring over Westeros are spectacular in every sense of the word.

With quality direction and cinematography, strong writing that combines political intrigue, family melodramatics and some impressively nasty twists and turns, and powerful performances from a cast that includes a number of familiar and well-decorated and mostly British veterans along with some greatly talented relative newcomers, “House of the Dragon” has the gravitas and visceral gut-punch effectiveness of a series that could be with us for a very long time.

Halfway through the second episode, instead of reminiscing about the Starks and the Lannisters, my focus became entirely fixed on the Targaryens. House of the Dragon may never be the next Game of Thrones but, from the six hours I've seen, it looks poised to at least step out of the giant shadow its predecessor casts.

It’s refreshing to see a show with creators who have clearly considered things like framing, pacing, and detail. “House of the Dragon” can get more than a little talky. ... And yet it’s really this choice to go back to political dynamics that helps “House of the Dragon” escape the shadow of the end of “Game of Thrones.”

There is enough to love in House of the Dragon that keeps me coming back for more. Between the dragons, the strength of the actors, and the twists and turns of the plot, I'm eager to see where we will be taken next.

It escalates and complicates some of the best and most controversial elements of its parent show that it should have no trouble standing on its own.

It is less sprawling and dense, and there is no wit-spouting equivalent to fan favorite Tyrion Lannister. But the confident storytelling and the epic setting may be immersive enough to sway even those still bitter about the “Game of Thrones” finale. Is it as good as “Thrones”? It’s too early to say, but the first episodes are compelling in their own way — think “Succession” with sharp swords instead of sharp words.

It may take viewers who enjoyed the spectacle of later seasons of "Game of Thrones" a while to get on board, but fans of Martin's books and the lore of Westeros are in for a treat.

[The series makers] reliance on sadism, cruelty and occasional disemboweling suggests either an adolescent impulse to push the violence as far as it will go or an understanding that what bonds the "Game of Thrones" community is a shared stomach for edgy mayhem. ... Only the first six episodes were made available for review, but those chapters establish a very convincing world and its people.

If it remains insulated from the pressure to compete with GoT, House of the Dragon could be a worthy successor in the vein of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul. Ambitious, visually arresting, and endlessly captivating.

The highest compliment I can pay House of the Dragon is to observe how much it feels like Game of Thrones. ... The dynamics of court, and the characters within it, are well drawn. Smith, in particular, gives a satisfyingly ambivalent performance as a slightly creepy uncle with a tremendous bloodlust.

That day may come for them, too, when the pressures of extending the show and inventing new twists and turns begins to weigh them down. For now, though, I’m happy to report that they know their dragon, they’ve harnessed its power, and in Season 1, they’re pouring on the fire.

House of the Dragon is more Game of Thrones. And it turns out Game of Thrones still works. Watching British actors talking quietly about high-stakes politics in well-appointed rooms still has the power to thrill, even if it does feel a bit too safe and over-familiar.

House of the Dragon isn’t good; it’s great. ... House of the Dragon is definitely the show Game of Thrones fans want, full of drama, fire, and blood. Oh, and lots of dragons.

While it's perhaps too early to make a prophecy, the signs are certainly good that House of the Dragon will take flight and burn bright. HBO – and fans – can breath a sigh of relief.

It’s well made. It’s brilliantly shot. It seethes with tension. And I’m dying to know what happens next, particularly after the shocking end to episode six. It’s just that Game of Thrones – well, the first seven-eighths of Game of Thrones – set a dauntingly high bar.

In short, all is as it was in GoT’s heyday. Fun, propulsive, looking great and sounding passable.

If early seasons of “Game of Thrones” meandered a bit or felt slow as the series followed assorted characters on multiple quests, “House of the Dragon” barrels through its story.

Despite a deliberate pace and narrow scope, HBO’s House of the Dragon proves itself a worthy successor to Game of Thrones.

As a Westeros history lesson, House of the Dragon succeeds, even occasionally to the point of fascination, but even after six episodes the story has yet to blossom into a true epic. Perhaps it can still.

So the show wants the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent to take center stage. But the early episodes bungle their dynamic, with an unspecific friendship that's relegated to the sidelines. The drama heightens when clear battle lines get drawn. ... Dragon doesn't soar immediately, but no House was built in a day.

Though the acting is exemplary, this grim, glum prequel sorely lacks a Tyrion, an impish jester to puncture the portentousness. [12 - 25 Sep 2022, p.11]

It’s mainstream fantasy, blessed with sumptuous costumes, compelling settings and those “Avatar”-like swooping dragons. Dragons, in fact, turn up just when the plot needs them most. When the house seems like it’s going to fall, they’re there to shore it up. ... It’s good; it still has time to be great.

The most thrilling or unsettling surprises of the original show were rooted in character, and so it is with the new series. It’s too bad “House of the Dragon” takes such a long time to define and shade the Targaryens and those in their orbit. But once it’s done, their viciousness gleams all the more against the darkness.

There’s much to praise in this show’s telling a new story that still chimes familiar themes, a succession drama that’s of Westeros but not reheated. ... But the show can, at times, be more easily admired than watched. ... Scenes tend toward the short and pointedly written, giving us much data but only the general contours of characters.

Sometimes the series overreaches in its effort to be bloodier, sexier, more risqué. ... But it is, for the most part, just fine to be back in Martin’s robust and intriguing history, an intricate tangle of noble houses, doomed knights, scheming strivers, and hopeless dopes.

Pure spectacle and (often icky) soap opera make for intermittently absorbing TV. Mainly though, the new “House” sticks safely to the “Game” that preceded it, rather than fight for any meaningful change.

HBO has followed the majesty of "Game of Thrones" with what might be called "games of throne" in "House of the Dragon," a series whose epic visual grandeur belies a smaller and less addictive power struggle, more narrowly focused on the Targaryen line. It's not bad, and there are dragons aplenty, but it doesn't produce the sort of characters that defined and elevated its predecessor to prestige-TV royalty.

"House of the Dragon" takes about five episodes to warm up, which corresponds to the amount of time that we spend with the younger actors playing key roles before a time jump necessitates a casting change. ... Rhaenyra is not Daenerys. She doesn't have a hype squad cheering on her murderous inclinations – yet – or an unearned sense of destiny. She's learning the price of capability and lessons about what it means to be a Targaryen, and a woman, from noble sources and unseemly ones. That combination of influences makes her an enigmatic guide back to a land we haven't forgotten, yet aren't entirely sure we've missed very much.

Nothing about the first several episodes of House of the Dragon, premiering Aug. 21 on HBO, marks it as a potential masterpiece. There are structural flaws, elements that come across as excessively derivative, a yawning void where thematic resonance should be. But it’s solid enough. ... Dragon plays it safe.

It’s disconcerting to see House of the Dragon becoming less distinctive and more beholden to Game of Thrones as it goes along, when it ought to be the opposite. There’s a lot that’s impressive in the first six episodes, but it’s as safe as a show with incest, gore and horrifying depictions of childbirth could possibly be. It needs to find its own voice.

House Of The Dragon has a lot to prove, and it makes an admirable attempt in its first few episodes. But for better and for worse, it has not escaped the shadow of its predecessor — at least, not yet.

The series does have the epic production values fans have come to expect, and the show is at pains to show early and often how far dragon-rendering technology has advanced in the years since Daenerys fire-bombed King’s Landing. What it lacks is something much simpler: a heart. ... If all you want is more Game of Thrones, then House of the Dragon might well be the Show That Was Promised. But if you’re looking for a show that is to the current TV landscape what Game of Thrones was then, well, there’s a long winter ahead.

None of the key players are particularly cunning or flailing; everyone is aggressively fine. Without standout characters that could lend the show some tonal variety — the wit of Tyrion Lannister or the bold earnestness of Brienne of Tarth — the series just sort of sits there, hitting the same beats again and again.

It’s all very efficient, well-made television, but just as it’s lacking in fun it’s lacking in fire.

As an exploration of the social contract in a decadent monarchy and an allegory for a grab bag of modern ills, including patriarchal sexism and the corrosive effect of weapons of mass destruction, “House of the Dragon” is reasonably smart and well put together. ... That seriousness of purpose doesn’t translate into engaging drama, however. There’s a lot of sitting around tables and talking.

"Dragon" at times feels like it's running through a "Thrones" checklist so as not to miss any element from the original series and anger a single fan.

"House" often does work well as straight history. It's that fantasy part that's missing. Other than dragons, there's little magic or mystery in this corner of Westeros — or that epic sense of wonder that made "Thrones" so thrilling through the first seven seasons. At least those dragons are fun.

It mostly resonates as uninspired rehashing. ... Not for a second, though, does any of it resound as intriguing, thrilling or important, and the future storylines it sets in motion appear, on the face of it, to promise only more of the same.

House of the Dragon’s rote mimicry of its predecessor undermines character development and dampens any sparks generated by its ensemble, and literally, due to a lack of sustained time with the titular creatures. ... The problem is not just that the dragons here feel less physically tangible than they did before or that they lack definitive personalities. It’s that House of the Dragon takes them for granted, just as it does our attention.

Every time House of the Dragon starts to get even the most precarious emotional foothold, we are suddenly years into the future, and the impact diminishes. Nearly everyone around the princess is boring, meanwhile.