Like wrangling a mighty scaled beast in for safe landing, HBO seems to have pulled off a fantastic (and fan-pleasing) feat: getting viewers worldwide to tune in for its Game of Thrones prequel series, after many vowed otherwise at that original show’s controversial conclusion.
House of the Dragon currently has a great 88% Fresh score from users on Rotten Tomatoes, and an only slightly cooler score of 82% from verified critics. Let’s round-up some of the common compliments and complaints from those early critical findings, shall we? But first a warning: here be spoilers and dragons.
Is it more or less fun than Game of Thrones?
“Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” So we were told in Game of Thrones, and yet it seems that the coin has landed on its edge when it comes to the birth of this Targaryen-driven prequel. The Guardian‘s review describes the new series as “just that little bit less fun than its predecessor…I did miss the breadth of Game of Thrones, and its ability to move between locations, each so vivid in their own different ways.”
Multiple critics agreed that this new show is more serious: “a darker, more solemn, more sophisticated piece—one that lacks the broad, accessible strokes of early Game of Thrones, or its vibrant, colourful characters”, in the words of the BBC, or “a blunt object, not a honed sword” as Variety claims.
One of Flicks’ two reviews felt that “House of the Dragon is destined to give Game of Thrones fans what they want but, critically, it is willing to take time to tell its story”. Luckily, that story also “truly fulfils the visual potential of dragons as weapons of war…it’s pretty cool.”
“I'm going to watch House of the Dragon because of the script”
The script: pic.twitter.com/DAq6WHQFmO
— Caraxes 🐉| HOTD era (@timiretimzzy2) August 19, 2022
Then again, Slant considered that the prequel may be too much fun without the heart to back it up. “Spectacle over substance is so often chosen that you might think that the book being adapted was just simply called “Blood” rather than Fire & Blood“, they noted sarcastically.
Matt Smith may be the MVP
“I’d argue that Game of Thrones thrived on the strength of its villains far more than the virtues of its heroes”, The Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson writes in her review of House of the Dragon, going on to praise Matt Smith’s Daemon as “a vain and bitter man…a nasty piece of work, for sure, a misogynist and a sadist”.
If you always liked the baddies better too, you’ll be pleased to hear that Smith has been singled out in most reviews of the pilot: Variety described him as “in full control of his charisma”, Flicks said he “comes off the best, and all he does to accomplish this is twirl his mustache a little”, and Den of Geek declared that the series’ “most interesting creation so far is undoubtedly the king’s brother, Daemon Targaryen.”
matt smith is such a good casting choice in house of the dragon bc he has that ‘handsome, but not in a way where you can rule out inbreeding’ type of look that's perfect for a targaryen
— yasmin (@ycsm1n) August 20, 2022
The quartet of actors playing Alicent and Rhaenyra as kids and teens have also earned some early acclaim, and the New York Times instead felt that Paddy Considine’s King Viserys was the clear standout: “whenever he’s centre-stage, the mock-Shakespearean theatrics of Martin’s fantasy morph into actual drama.”
A gory childbirth scene shocked many viewers
Betrayal, jousting battles, death by crabs…the pilot of House of the Dragon already reminded us just how gnarly George R.R. Martin’s imagination can be. But the most striking moment of all was Queen Aemma’s violent childbirth scene, an “invasive, intimate, and horrifying” death Den of Geek‘s reviewer called “one of the most upsetting things I’ve ever seen on television.”
The New York Times felt that the series’ ongoing subplots of the misogynistic pain faced by women was its strongest theme: “the anger of Rhaenyra and other female characters at the practical and sometimes violently physical price they pay for being women is presented in believable and often moving ways…illustrated with three agonizing scenes of childbirth in just six episodes.” Yeowch. The BBC agreed that “this is a story explicitly about the injustices and indignities of being a woman under a patriarchal system.”
i think it's very funny that the house of the dragon guys are like "we want to reflect the misogyny of the time period" the time period is the twelfth of makebelieve. it's the 149th year of sir gooby the dragonfoot. it's the eighth age of targabargabor. it's literally made up
— Thing Bad (@Merman_Melville) August 22, 2022
One of the series’ only negative user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes complains that the scene is question “is disturbing in the extreme. This show is written by sick individuals for other sick people.” Travis Johnson also felt the scene was somewhat needless: “a particularly graphic caesarian delivery is merely unpleasant without being impactful.”
The future of the Targaryen’s tale
It seems most critics were shown the first five or six episodes of House of the Dragon, if they weren’t solely going from the available pilot episode. Many reviews were taken aback at all the timeline-jumping that had already transpired, so for Flicks, Dominic Corry felt the one-location focus was beneficial: “this show hones in on the slippery machinations of one ruling family, telling a more intimate story.”
Den of Geek seemed to agree, preferring the Targaryen-only pilot to GoT‘s much loved first episode, calling it “in many ways better as it’s a far more focused experience. Save for a pre-credit flashback in the ruins of Harrenhal, the story focuses solely on King’s Landing and Viserys I’s royal court within it.”
What do critics hope for from the coming first season? In their mostly disappointed reviews, Flicks’ Travis Johnson and Slate Magazine both expressed optimism for future episodes. The latter admitted that House of the Dragon “may in fact hatch, dragon-like, into [a compelling watch], “but its current incarnation is a colossal bore”.
Johnson felt that the series had a good chance of “[settling] into its groove in the next handful of episodes”, but warned that “the current television environment is not kind to series that take a long time to find their feet”. Perhaps it’ll take a convincing Daenerys-esque saviour to get audiences onboard, then—and yet that RT score shows that many of us are already keen Targaryenites…
