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).

2. Give us more characters worth rooting for

Though Game Of Thrones had its fair share of no-nonsense players keeping the wheels of power grinding away, it seeded in plenty of folks we could love with our whole hearts: scrappy Arya Stark, loyal Brienne of Tarth, heroic Jon Snow—even Daenerys, in her pre-asshole days.House Of The Dragon, on the other hand, feels like: Oops, All Tywin Lannisters. The show has certainly created compelling protagonists in Rhaenyra, Alicent, and Daemon; but they’re a trio of calculating, morally gray politicians whose actions are frequently difficult for viewers to stand behind. And while we’ve definitely got shades of black in characters like Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) and Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), the show is devoid of white hats—at least any who are interesting enough to care about. A series with an ensemble this large needs the full spectrum of heroes, antiheroes, and villains to keep us watching.