7 ways to fix House Of The Dragon

When HBO’s House Of The Dragon premiered two summers ago, it had direwolf-size shoes to fill. After all, it was the first spinoff of Game Of Thrones, one of the most popular series in television history. Over the course of eight seasons, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ Emmy-winning fantasy saga became the water-cooler show of the 2010s, delighting—and, nearly as often, mightily pissing off—its legions of fans.

Set two centuries before Ned Stark made his fateful journey from Winterfell to King’s Landing, House Of The Dragon is based on Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin’s history of the Targaryen dynasty that ruled Westeros for nearly 300 years. The show homes in on the Dance of Dragons, a war of succession that tore the most incestuous house in the Seven Kingdoms in two.

Season one sets up the action. Lacking a male heir, King Viserys I (Paddy Considine) names his daughter, Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock/Emma D’Arcy), as his successor. But things get messy after he weds her best friend, Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey/Olivia Cooke), who threatens Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne when she gives birth to a son. By the finale, Viserys is dead, and the two former besties find themselves on opposite sides of a looming civil war.

Ryan J. Condal and Martin’s series came right out of the gate with dragonfire blazing, netting 9.3 million viewers in 2022. But despite being a ratings hit, the season was a mixed bag, quality-wise. It lacked some essentials that made its predecessor such a roaring success—often letting the tension go slack, trotting out a small army of barely defined side characters, and striking a uniformly grim tone. That said, House Of The Dragon has a lot going for it: a uniformly stellar cast, a central plot that highlights the inextricable link between the personal and the political, and a conclusion that sets up an explosive season to come.

Whether you’re rooting for the Greens or the Blacks, here are seven ways the show could improve upon its uneven first season to conjure a second batch, which starts June 16, that’s truly fire (and blood).

1. Settle on a pace

If there’s anything House Of The Dragon should’ve learned from the much-loathed final season of Game Of Thrones, it’s that viewers hate to be rushed. Rhythmically, the first installment of House Of The Dragon was all over the place. The top half devoted entire episodes to King Viserys I (Paddy Considine) ineffectually staring off into the middle distance, then gave mere minutes to Prince Daemon’s (Matt Smith) cold-blooded murder of his first wife, Rhae Royce (Rachel Redford), a character we’ve known for all of 30 seconds.The show was firing on all cylinders, though, when it really took time to sit with its characters while also upping the stakes. Take “,” an all-time-great episode that unfolded in real time over the course of a tense Targaryen-Hightower family dinner. We’re not saying there aren’t times to pick up the beat (the 10-year time jump midway through the season was a breath of fresh air, and frankly should have come a lot sooner). Just because House Of The Dragon is based on what’s essentially a history textbook doesn’t mean it should be as dull as one.