‘House of the Dragon’ Series Review: A Bombastic, Ambitious Return For The ‘Game of Thrones’ Universe

House of the Dragon, the prequel series to the popular-yet-controversial Game of Thrones produced by HBO, was created by Ryan Condal and George R. R. Martin. Condal and GOT alum Miguel Sapochnik served as the series’ showrunners with an all-star cast consisting of Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Emma D’arcy, Olivia Cooke, Rhys Ifans and many others.

House of the Dragon is reportedly the first of as many as six Game of Thrones prequels currently in development at HBO, and if this show is any indication of the level of quality the other subsequent series will have, then we can certainly be optimistic about the future of this franchise as House of the Dragon serves as a worthy successor to the series that came before.

Part of what makes House of the Dragon such a great follow-up to Game of Thrones is that the show essentially returns to its roots and explores the themes and concepts that made GOT so interesting in the first place. What originally attracted audiences to this universe was the sense of grittiness that wasn’t common in the fantasy genre, the morally grey characters that could do both good and bad things, and the complicated explorations of corruption and power.

This is what makes Westeros stand out from other generic fantasy settings, and thankfully House of the Dragon chooses to mostly focus on these character and dialogue-driven moments rather than resorting to mindless violence and action like the last two seasons of Game of Thrones did.

In fact, the most surprising aspect of House of the Dragon is how lacking this show is in action as aside from a war involving a character called the Crabfeeder and the small but typical moments of violence involving Prince Daemon (Smith), a lot of this show is mostly dialogue and character interaction.

However, this is by no means a flaw with the series. If anything, it’s the best aspect of House of the Dragon: that in spite of all the dragons and knights and sword-fighting, this show is first and foremost about two things: characters and choices.

Every character, whether it be the main ones like King Viserys (Considine) or Princess Rhaenyra (D’arcy) or the more minor characters like The White Worm (Sonoya Mizuno) or Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), has some kind of want, some kind of goal that they want to achieve. Whether it be power, love, or status, every character has deep desires they want to fulfil, and they will do anything to attain that.

This is what makes House of the Dragon an interesting show: its focus on these characters and how their goals lead them to make very morally grey and difficult choices. How one’s actions can lead to some disastrous consequences.

Outside of these thematic ideas that this show excellently explores, House of the Dragon boasts a lot of great technical qualities as well.

For starters, the best thing about this show is definitely the acting as most of the cast gives great performances with my favorite being Considine as King Viserys. Viserys is clearly someone who never wanted to be king but was forced into the position due to the pressures of the political system, and you can see the internal pain and subtle struggles that his character undergoes through Considine’s performance. His character especially shines throughout the later episodes of the season where he starts becoming physically weaker, his skin starts deteriorating, and he loses several body parts the longer he becomes king until eventually, he is nothing but rotting skin and bones.

The rest of the cast gave great performances as well. Both Milly Alcock and D’arcy played young and old Rhaenyra respectively well, and the same goes for Emily Carey and Cooke, who played both young and old Alicent respectively.

The show makes great use of time jumps as, compared to Game of Thrones which takes place mostly within the same time period, House of the Dragon spans a wide range of time as we see a lot of these characters grow from young children and budding adults to full-grown parents and elders, and the show does an excellent job showcasing the passage of time using actors and their performances rather than relying on text to indicate that time has passed.

Outside of the acting though, there is a lot that this show offered as well. Considering that several of the directors on this show had worked previously as directors on Game of Thrones, it was very apparent that a lot of talent had gone into this show’s directing.

Without spoiling, one of the best episodes of the show was in Episode 7 involved a dinner party with Viserys and his family. While on paper not much is happening in this scene, it is how it is presented that makes this my favorite moment in the entire series. From the blocking and framing to the editing to the use of music to the way dialogue is communicated, everything from a technical level is on point and helps craft a scene that manages to be both wholesome and tense, and a lot of that is thanks to the directing.

While the show is clearly made with a lot of love, passion and craft, there are some aspects that hold this series back.

For starters, while it is very apparent that this entire first season serves as a build-up to the Dance of the Dragons Civil War that will begin in the second season, it nonetheless does not detract from how slow this series can be. While the best part about House of the Dragon is these big moments of dialogue and characters interacting with each other, these sorts of scenes tend to draw out for so long that they can make the pacing feel sluggish.

For example, in one episode there is a moment where after a character dies, his son needs to take up a certain position because of that death. However, rather than just jumping towards that ascension into power, the show creates an unnecessary conflict that will draw out that process, leading to a number of moments and events that ultimately don’t mean much overall and just pads out the runtime. While there are plenty of other moments like that in this show, it was that particular time where the length of the show truly felt incredibly long and drawn out.

However, despite that, House of the Dragon is still a beautifully written, acted and directed show that is worth one’s time, whether they be a die-hard fan of Westeros or a newcomer who has never consumed or experienced anything Game of Thrones-related.

This is a show that has clearly learned from the mistakes of the series that came before, and with the help of Martin, this series has returned to its roots to tell a family political drama that happens to feature dragons and knights.