I kinda forgot that HBO had prequels planned for GoT
Had no high hopes after the last few seasons of Game of Thrones - but after watching S01E01, I think this is worth giving a chance.
All the important pieces were present in the first episode; good writing, visuals, acting.
The CGI looks cheap, but there's not a lot of it (except dragons of course). Some gory practical effects, those all looked good.
+Update after 4 episodes: The season is only improving so far. Worth following. Actress Milly Alcock as princess Rhaenyra stands out from a an overall good cast.
++Update after 8 episodes: As the story made a time jump a couple of episodes back, half the cast were replaced by "older" versions. I wouldn't have minded the new actors if that were the only change, but the writing also weirdly changed - It does not feel like we are following the same characters. Which makes the whole thing fairly boring, no matter how grand the CG vistas or sets.
I might catch up with the last few episodes at some point, but if anyone is wondering whether or not to get into this - I'd say maybe just skip the whole thing.
HOTD is now ruined for me. There is no reason why the two lead female characters couldn't have been played by the original actors. Have they heard of make-up? I spent half of episode 6 asking who these people are. I totally lost my connection to the characters. Rhaenyra looks 50 years old... why? Plus, the feel of the characters is extremely different from the original cast. Going from an amazing episode to this garbage is a tragic and epic fail!
This show is all hype and no substance. Any show should draw you in and connect you to a main character, any main character, and this show doesn't do that. You just cannot like anyone in this, they are all just the most unlikable people.
House of the Dragon is certainly much more diverse than GOT was, introducing a whole noble group of white haired dark skinned people -but they really blew it because what could have been a cool addition to the show all come off as just more unlikable characters.
That's the root of my distaste for this show, I don't like anyone in it. You can take so many shows with terrible people, Dexter for example, where the acts of the person may repulse you but you can't help but to like the person and their motivation - even if the actions don't appeal. Nobody like that exists in this show except for a few guards here and there that you wish had a bigger role.
This is 100% about power-hungry ladder climbers with almost no redeemable qualities that would cause you to root for them.
The best part of this show are the dragons, which dwindle from episode to episode (as of now at least) so that it just all boils down to watching people you don't like do things that you don't really root for in a kingdom not worth cheering for. Where is our Ned Stark?
The tragic story of a man who just wanted to build his model city in some damn peace
Can this show be any more boring? What a waste of my time.
This show has a problem. And it’s not about something in the show, it’s actually the absence of it. The mother show GoT was excellent in displaying the different houses and their thrive for the throne. But it also had a bigger threat to everything human posed upon the viewer from the very first episode - the white walkers and the viewers knowledge that when winter is coming everything will change. This imminent constant threat is what is missing in this show. First I didn’t realize it but I always felt something is missing. It played such a big part in the background of GoT that without it HotD is ‘just’ another drama. It’s still good at that but it’s not really much more either.
This show needs a white walker or something because as it stands, there is no one to root for. Every character is unlikable and this just feels like a soap opera for men. It was a slog to get through. At the same time, you're never really taken out of the main city centre. GoT was nice because you'd get different settings completely like going north to the wall. This show has none of that.
It's basically a soap opera version of GOT. The main subject is who will marry who and similar nonsense around it.
I tried but it's not worth continuing. It's incredibly boring.
The show is full of really ugly actors and animal abuse. Do not recommend!
if you are a fan of GOT this thing will completely ruin it.. do not watch this shite..
This is what happens when a company takes your love for a show for granted and thinks you will watch whatever garbage spin-off they can come up with
It's OK, but does it's best to be as confusing as possible - much like GOT. I watched all of GOT, not sure I can watch much past the end of this season when it arrives - just not interesting enough.
It's a terrible show. Bad acting, scenes in total darkness, covered up by cheap or bad CGI, the plot seems to be stuck waiting for someone to remember and write something better. Actors don't seem to be able to remember the lyrics, or the characters are remembering something. I started watching purely because of Game of Thrones. If this is going to have two seasons, I doubt I'm going to watch it.
Not a patch on GOT. Two brothers, one a king with no screen presence and can't rule, other brother who wants to kill everyone around him, and an actor who tries to be a villain, but just can't carry it off.
6 episodes over and nothing much has happened.......
After 6 episodes of GOT you were hooked, all the actors were brilliant and suited their roles perfectly and got their personality over on the screen, you either loved or hated them...none of the characters in House of the Dragon has done this.....in my opinion.
Kinda still waiting for it to start.......
I just hope they don't make the same mistake as they did with the last season of Game of Thrones.
I think it's an okay first season. It doesn't nearly come close to the height of season 1 of GOT, but it was definitely better than the last two seasons of GOT.
My biggest gripe however is that it does look cheaper than GOT. The CGI was terrible for the most part (like you can clearly make out the CGI parts of sets, that wasn't as much of an issue in GOT). What is also bothering me a lot were the constant day for night scenes with a specific episode being a repeat of that infamous "The Long Night" episode (in season 8 of GOT). It certainly depends on your TV set, but a lot of scenes in this show are way too dark even on decent TVs (I have an LG CX)...
Anyway, I am looking forward to season 2. I am glad I gave this a chance after that terrible GOT finale.
It is pretty clear that everything about this show had to go thru a corporate boardroom for approval. the characters are uninteresting, the story lines are boring, the plot is basically taken from a Bravo show about self important idiots.
it might already be better than game of thrones. extremely well-shot, intriguing characters, and paddy considine's acting is absolutely incredible. can't wait for the future
The very weird thing about this show is that they fcked up the ageing of a lot of characters in the story. Really is distracting to watch.
"House of the Dragon" is at times closer to a high-budget fantasy soap opera than to a "Game of Thrones" prequel, and, as someone who grew up watching "The Bold and the Beautiful" as part of the family's daily lunch ritual, I absolutely mean that as a compliment (more or less). Soap operas can be great entertainment for the absurd twists and larger-than-life campy situations, but those usually occur once every two hundred episodes. On the contrary, "House of the Dragon" consistently rings on a high note, to the point that we have the opposite problem of typical soap operas and TV shows in general. As the source material is essentially a historical treatise covering generations without indulging in detail and minor episodes, there was no way that its TV counterpart could get away from inserting continuous time leaps and condensing seasons' worth of story into a few hours. This means that the pacing is so tight that you will hardly have any time to get bored, but also that character development often ends up feeling forced and mechanical as years, sometimes decades, can separate the ending of one episode from the beginning of the following. Yet, there will be times the show mysteriously indulges in minor episodes for no apparent reason.
The tone also tends to be a little uneven depending on the episodes, switching back and forth between moments of austerity with nuanced dialogue and moments of pure camp with gratuitous sex and violence. There’s no way you could be subtle all along with such a high-budget production that needs to appeal to the widest audience possible, yet a more even tone and pacing could have helped the whole thing feel more coherent. Things usually work within a single episode, but, its contradictions emerge by putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
The strongest aspect of “House of Dragon” definitely lies in its characters. Despite the development feeling a little bumpy due to the time leaps, most characters are charismatic and easy to connect with. The performances are also solid except for Mysaria (damn, she is even worse than Shae). The showrunners clearly want us to side with the Blacks, but at the same time, it looks like they are trying to justify the actions of both girls in the middle. The original material is much less apologetic, but with a TV show, we definitely need someone to feel for. I agree with the writers’ decisions up to this point, but at the same time, I would have preferred the situation to be a little more ambiguous, leaving us unsure of which character to side with.
Overall, "House of the Dragon" definitely makes good use of all the things we loved about "Game of Thrones", and successfully takes us back on a gripping journey to Westeros to recover from the PTSD caused by the seventh and eighth seasons. Yet, at the same time, its inconsistencies in tone and sometimes questionable narrative choices still keep us unsure, if not slightly worried, about the series' future.
Had high hopes but the series didn’t grab me really. Also the swap of one of the lead actors was really disappointing. Less interesting scenes took forever while key ones were very short.
The Targaryens are back and with them the magic of GOT, a magnificent work in its first season, we can only hope for a better level and many battles for the following seasons.
Finally we have Dragons at their best in Westeros and everyone wants to sit upon that most magnificent spikey chair. Sadly their is nobody I care about to do that. This is still the Game of Thrones but 175 years earlier without honourable men like Eddard Stark, underdogs like Tyrion Lannister, anti heroes like The Hound and insufferable Villains like Joffery. It is only 1 season gone but to me the main players seem a little watered down. Here's hoping we get some potent Fire and Blood in the next House of the Dragon.
don't have words to describe how much i love this show and the ending was so epic ,,,,,i love this show
G.O.T is back for sure ,full of energy like G.O.T itself.
Thrones is back! Feels like it never really went away.
I'm not a big fan of Matt Smith but let's hope he's good in this
I am looking forward to this! I was pretty upset the way game of thrones ended.. I knew about this for awhile, I just hope this is on the same level as game of thrones. Not only that last as long as game of thrones did as well if not longer. ╰(★‿★)╯ :sparkles:
I missed Ramin Djawadis score.
Yeah!that's what I've been waiting for.Nice way to start and I'm hoping it goes smoothly throughout the entire season.Nice!
They’re back like they haven’t missed a beat.
It’s very smartly put together by HBO; they took the two main elements from GoT that everybody liked the most (political maneuvering & dragons) and built a new show around that. A new show that doesn’t feel like its rethreading the past (or should I say future?) in any way. Sure, both shows thematically deal with the nature of power, but these characters feel fresh and different (and I’d argue they’re equally as compelling as some of GoT’s best). I like that it isn’t a big dynasty show focussing on many different families again, but instead just contained to a few main characters. The acting’s top notch, all the main characters are once again perfectly cast. The filmmaking has gotten more cinematic since GoT (absolutely love the dramatic use of light in this show), and the CGI looks beautiful.
I’m not entirely sure what the subtext of this show is going to be. With GoT, the main takeaway to me always felt like it was commenting on the way we deal with climate change (our collective ignorance towards it, often getting caught up in petty, political bs). With this one so far, it feels like the it’s trying to state something about female independence and sexism, but we’ll see if that remains in the foreground for the rest of the show.
Really Cool. Thrones is back, baby!!
Looking at the books, this should be even better than the last one.
Going full on woke so it's going broke, 0/10
Boring only drama and talking show pff. Overrated show. Looked 3 episodes nothing happens but talking and talking nothing more
Yes, it's not perfect, but neither was Game of Thrones. That's why I think it's valid that I can say this has the potential to be even BETTER. All it's missing is some gold character building, which i hope season 2 brings.
The first time I’ve seen the use of gore as an effective visual to explain an important and uniquely female experience of giving birth and the risks and burdens of such an act when it is seen as your one and only duty as a women. The show is riveting and meaningful and it has cool dragons. It also tackles the balances of friendship, duty, power, love. Amazing
i was as excited as i can be since the first appearance of a Dragon, i loved revisiting this world of Game of Thrones again with this show, and the quality was upheld very well
i just Know that it's about to go down in season 2, and i cannot wait for it
Feels much more like a historical drama than a fantasy one with all the internecine dynastic struggle and sitting around in dark rooms talking. Having said that, I quite like the intense focus on the characters, and Rhaenyra and Alicent especially are written well. I do think the show could do with a bit more dynamism in the settings and tone from scene to scene. Some levity here and there would also be welcome.
Nice pictures, acting 'okay' BUT the storyline is not that good, some characters are redundant and uninteresting or very predictable: disappointing compared to GOT standards.
Won't be watching Season 2 unless the (real viewers) reviews show major improvements.
Having us wait until 2024 for the second season is just mean.
Disappointing. Boring soap opera with bunch of bleached folks and few dragons.
Using the amazing story and style of GOT... They create a pro femenist show....
Utterly bad... Just a story of step daughter fighting against her step mother...
Wow, what a shame of making it under the GOT branding...
So predictable...
This took me a while to get into but that is wholly because I was so bent on comparing every little aspect to Game of Thrones whereas, although it is a spin off of that show, it shouldn't be compared because it stands strongly on its own. The characters are compelling, there is intrigue scattered throughout the 10 episodes. There's brutality, there's betrayal, there's dragons. What more could you ask for! I'm only ratingthis at an 8 currently as I only have 1 season to go off so I don't know how it will fair in the later seasons but this could potentially stand beside it's mother show game of thrones as one of favourite TV shows of all time.
Invariably, whenever I used to hear about a possible Spin Off of Game of Thrones, it used to make me sceptical. Whether it could live up to the love and admiration the original received. In comes House of the Dragon S1 and it just washed my pessimism and makes me it's admirer yet again. House of The Dragon extends my love for the Stories of the seven kingdoms , it's characters and all its dragons. S1 starts off slowly and keeps building the tension with subsequent episodes. The show packs visually delightful cinematography, stunning background scores in different important scenes and the artistic writing of the characters and their conflicts. The politics and race for power is quite engaging and exciting at the same time which holds your attention till the end of it.
S1 is packed with powerhouse performances and with so many brilliant characters it would be unfair to point anyone specific. But Matt Smith as Daemon, Paddy Considine as Viserys are my favourite from the lot. Emma D'arcy and Olivia Cooke are fantastic and the sublime chemistry between these two powerful characters is a treat to any lover of this genre.
Overall, House of the Dragon lives upto my expectations quite significantly courtesy to the powerful character dynamics, stunning performances, grand production design and a refreshing storyline with the beloved Seven Kingdoms tale. A must watch for those who enjoyed Game of Thrones.
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‘Then the storm broke and the dragons danced.’
The first season is so good and does a great job of setting up the Dance of the Dragons. I can’t wait for the second season so I’ll probably buy the book.
Matt smith supremacy!!!!! House of The Dragon first season has been nothing short of epic
Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen make such a sexy couple. Damn. Love them!
Still don’t know yet.
I actually thought the original game of thrones ending were quite good, which I can see is a very different opinion to the vast majority of people on the internet. I think this show is looking promising too, being set in the same universe as GoT but having no direct correlation (yet). Will be watching more of this :)
What a ResidentSleeper show
Sadge
I may watch the entirety of game of thrones just so I can see Matt smith in this
Says new episodes release monday but they actualyl release on sunday
so far so good fingers x for the rest of season
Spoiler: That birth scene was brutal! One thing that was apparent right out of the gate this show is brutal. Eye gauging and head stomping is nothing, it was like all the brutality of GOT just in the first episode. Great actors chosen for their roles.
The original series made me hate women, the first episode of this series made me hate men ! Overall, the original is definitely better both in story and cinematography but this was still entertaining
Slow start. Hope it will get better.
kind of apprehensive to even watch this given how poorly GoT ended. Would I just be wasting my time again?
Fingers crossed the Hollywood woke brigade don't destroy this, just have a feeling they will.
T-4 gals and boyz... i'm gonna roast a dragon!
Shout by Vault BoyBlockedParent2022-10-24T05:48:16Z
This series upholds the high standards of its predecessor.
It is the gold standard for TV entertainment and while you could take exception to some of the time jumps and character swaps, you can't do anything but praise the writing and acting.
This show proves that there is still talent and capability out there to make great shows.
The wasteland that is modern programming is a self inflicted wound, I hope more networks wise up. I'm talking to you, Amazon and Apple.