Critic Reviews
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Dragons fill the skies and ships fill the seas, and every one of them aims to cause maximum destruction to the other side. That’s obviously very sad for the people involved; sorry that happened or whatever, but it’s bloody great as a viewer.
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Each new episode zips along, its concise presentation never shortchanging character or narrative intelligence. Schemes and themes that were meticulously, and often tediously, set up in Season 2 pay off with swift, delectable complications — twists best discovered firsthand.
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House of the Dragon Season 3 transcends television and is sheer explosive entertainment.
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The two episodes available to press are bookended with memorable series-defining moments. Of course, with the season storming out of the gate in such a blaze of glory, could it risk of fizzling out further into the run? We’ll have to wait and see.
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The series is better than ever, and the new season will have you hanging on every single moment.
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An assured and often-thrilling mixture of colossal battles and court intrigue.
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Alongside him [Corlys Velaryon], the Battle Of The Gullet, with all its impressive moving parts and tragic payoffs, makes good on the promise of House Of The Dragon. Its drama fuses family tensions and dragon warfare into a spectacle that never loses sight of the people caught in its chaos, and better still, a thrilling glimpse of the battles yet to come.
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This show has found its focus. The start of season three is a fine epic, balancing big battles with sharp two-hander scenes where dominance shifts and fatal personality flaws are forced out. Add the odd new face and a blast of comic relief here and there and you have proper Thrones.
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It’s bleak as hell, and it’s also the best House of the Dragon has ever been, clear-eyed about the story it’s telling and no longer so enamored with the people grasping for power or the dragons they use for their bidding.
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“House of the Dragon” feels even more confident in itself, perhaps due to the fact that it is no longer saddled with so much jostling of these pieces around the chessboard.
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Thankfully, this adaptation is finally beginning to explore the core themes of Martin’s novels. While there are certain changes in character motivations that don’t necessarily work, the politicking that once felt lackluster actually has consequences, and watching these events unfold is more thrilling than ever.
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So long as this momentum continues, we can certainly count on House of the Dragon season 3 to prove us wrong about Game of Thrones endings.
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House of the Dragon only really settles into its groove when the watery strife is out of the way and the story switches to, among other things, political manoeuvrings and the day-to-day demands of running a kingdom – such as dealing with uppity woolworkers or starving peasants.
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Whether they provide surprise and distraction or anchoring ballast, it’s the people who make “House of the Dragon” worth enduring the predetermined devastation. The dragons are just the CGI flying lizards on top.
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This review is only based on the first four episodes of Season 3, which is to say that Season 2 was also amazing up until Rook's Rest in Episode 4, and things could certainly change in the back half. But as it is now, despite all the stumbling blocks along the way, House of the Dragon is still spectacle TV worth tuning in for.
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More action-packed but still as thoughtful as ever, the first half of Season 3 suggests it could very well be House Of The Dragon’s best offering yet.
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It’s still a show you have to watch with the Wiki at hand. .... Fortunately, the third season, the first half of which was shown to critics in advance, finally starts to zero in on what feels like it might be the show’s core story, which is less to do with the rise and fall of the Targaryen family fortunes than what bloody wars of succession do to the people those squabbling rulers are meant to rule
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The third season makes clear the HBO prequel is intent on compensating for brains with sheer brawn.
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The series is still too packed, too narratively rushed and, as much as I’m certain passionate fans will disagree, the surplus of dragons and special effects has become somewhat anticlimactic. But! The third episode of the season and, to a lesser degree, the fourth were my favorite House of the Dragon episodes to date.
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Season 3 is a joyless exercise that’s nonetheless an improvement on the wayward Season 2. Not only does the opening hour pay off on the eight episodes of build-up that first aired two years ago, but the ensuing half-season benefits from the focus and unification lent by the results. (Four episodes were provided for review.)
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Season 3 of "House" still has too many forgettable and stilted characters (who can even remember little Rhaena Targaryen and her dragon problems, and why is she suddenly so important?) and not nearly enough oomph behind its biggest conflicts, even with two seasons' worth of backstory in its wake. But there are glimmers of hope, particularly after the first two (sadly) table-setting episodes, that there is some honest-to-goodness storytelling momentum here.