Review: House of the Dragon’s debut might win back alienated GoT fans
Enlarge / Matt Smith stars as the scheming and ruthless Prince Daemon Targaryen, heir presumptive to the Iron Throne. (credit: HBO Max)
Making a prequel to a beloved series is never easy, especially when it's a prequel to one of the most influential blockbuster series of the last decade-one that whiffed its finale so badly that it alienated some of its most devoted fans. HBO's House of the Dragon rose to the challenge, debuting last night with a solid, promising pilot episode. Granted, it suffers a bit in comparison with Game of Thrones (especially the earlier seasons). But this was an eminently watchable and entertaining pilot that might even win back some of those alienated fans if the rest of the season lives up to that promise.
(Some spoilers below.)
As I've written previously, House of the Dragon is set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen's reign. Those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons-at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin. The book begins with Aegon I's conquest of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, thanks to the family's advanced weaponry: dragons. This is followed by a period of relative peace before the inevitable succession crisis. The final two sections of Fire and Blood deal with the fallout of that crisis and serve as the primary source material for House of the Dragon.