Critic Reviews
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"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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It’s all very efficient, well-made television, but just as it’s lacking in fun it’s lacking in fire.
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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.
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"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.
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"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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 318 out of 615
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Mixed: 43 out of 615
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Negative: 254 out of 615
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Aug 22, 2022
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Oct 5, 2022
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Aug 22, 2022knowing that Bran is still going to be a king makes this all thing meaningless