If there’s one thing House of the Dragon knows how to do well, it’s battle scenes.
Series three premieres today, and (for those of us still watching) it’s a visual feast – gorgeously animated dragons doing battle in the skies, as pirates fight soldiers on ships below. Finally, all the boring scheming of series two has paid off with dollops of action.
But once the excitement of the battle is over, the boredom creeps in again. Again, the endless scenes of people in white wigs talking to each other in high-ceilinged throne rooms. Again, those interminably dark shots that make it hard to make out faces, let alone who’s fighting who. Above all, there’s endless misery.
House of the Dragon started out strong, buoyed by the massive success of Game of Thrones. That didn’t exactly go out on a high, but it’s still hard to deny just how influential it was – and still is. A fantasy show, featuring sex, death and dragons, excellent plotting and some truly iconic villains? We lapped it up – and with the 2019 finale drawing in 19.3 million viewers, perhaps it was no surprise that a spin-off was announced as soon as you could say “dracarys”.
Three seasons of House of the Dragon have followed, as well as another prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and a whole host of promised projects, including a potential blockbuster film centred around Aegon’s Conquest of Westeros. I’m starting to realise that getting what I wished for – more Game of Thrones – is perhaps not all it’s cracked up to be.
