TV Show Review - House of the Dragon (Season 1)

Season: 1
Genre: Drama/ Fantasy
Number of episodes: 10
Year: 2022
Starring: Milly Alcock, Emma D’Arcy, Emily Carey, Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Rhys Ifans, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel

Description: An internal succession war withing House Targaryen at the height of its power, 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.

Review: “Game of Thrones” was a huge success for HBO. Perhaps the last show that almost everyone seemed to watch. The spin-ff “House of the Dragon” is supposed to be its successor. But despite it’s set in the same fantasy world as “Game of Thrones”, the series has become a different kind of series.

It’s a prequel series and set about 170 years before Daenerys Targaryen was even born. It’s based on George R.R. Martin’s book “Fire & Blood”. There are no familiar characters, but we do meet many characters with similar names, because it’s not uncommon in royal families to name your child after another family member.

The series contains fewer characters than “Game of Thrones” and also takes place in fewer different locations. The drama revolves around the Targaryens and related families Velaryon and Hightower.
The game for the throne begins with the death of the queen, after which King Viserys is left with only one child: Princess Rhaenyra. He appoints her as his heir and makes everyone swear allegiance to her, despite the fact that he himself came to power only because most of the lords of Westeros did not want his niece Rhaenys on the throne: would rather have a distant cousin on the throne who does not seem suitable, than a woman.

Viserys is expected to remarry very quickly after his wife’s death. He choses Alicent Hightower, his daughter’s childhood friend and daughter of his hand Otto Hightower. Alicent and Viserys soon have their first child together: a son, which makes him the first male heir to the throne. We get many time-jumps after that and follow these characters over a twenty year period. Rhaenyra and Alicent become increasingly enemies, despite attempts at rapprochement. The men around them want power and do not shun violence, murder or war to do so.

Structurally, “House of the Dragon” is set apart to cover those many years. Sometimes several years pass between episodes, which is mostly explained in dialogue. There is even ten years between episode five and six, after which all the younger characters are played by different actors, including Rhaenyra and Alicent, who have suddenly become adult mothers of multiple children (sometimes hard to keep up which child is which).

Daring as we had just gotten used to the young actresses Milly Alcock and Emily Carey. But Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke take over with dignity. To get to know the characters, the structure is slow at first, but then sometimes suddenly jumps quickly from dramatic climax to climax.

So far, “House of the Dragon” is definitely better than the last season of “Game of Thrones”, but not even close to when the successful series was at its best. It has more dragons though, which is a huge plus.