To mangle the words of Elvis Presley, it is a little more conversation, a little less action. Partly this is because it is a more grownup version of this world. HBO® and all related programs are the property of Home Box Office, Inc. ‘It opens with the Lear-esque prospect of a failing king choosing his heir.’ Photograph: HBO/2022 Home Box Office, Inc. House of the Dragon takes its time to drip-feed the down-in-the-dirt baddies that are so enjoyable to rail against. He is a nasty piece of work, for sure, a misogynist and a sadist, but until episode six, he is the only truly despicable main player in King’s Landing. I’d argue that Game of Thrones thrived on the strength of its villains, far more than the virtues of its heroes, and Matt Smith plays Daemon as a vain and bitter man who nevertheless cannot quite betray his family name. The political wheel turns on a rumour, and as Viserys begins to appear frail, there is a growing sense of urgency about where the wheel will stop. Daemon is a hotheaded peacock who refuses to play by any rules he considers beneath him. It could be the tagline for the whole thing.Īmid much grumbling about Rhaenyra, Viserys’s brother steps forward. “I am glad I am not a woman,” says one male character, later in the series. In this world, royal women are breeding machines and bargaining chips. Rhaenyra is a strong, ambitious and courageous teenage girl, and would be an ideal heir, were it not for the fact that the Lords have already made it clear, in very recent history, that tradition demands a king, and not a queen, on the Iron Throne. It opens with the Lear-esque prospect of a failing king choosing his heir, and though the people shift slightly over the course of the series, succession is the thread that keeps it all together.Įpisodes one to five centre on young Princess Rhaenyra (played by Milly Alcock), the only child of King Viserys I (Paddy Considine).
A prequel to Game of Thrones, it begins 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, and it chronicles the fall of the Targaryen dynasty, though after watching the first six episodes of squabbling and scheming, the real question is how it can possibly take two centuries to collapse. George RR Martin’s world struts its way back on to our screens with utter confidence and brio. There is a drunken orgy, an axe to the face, a caesarean without anaesthetic, seeping wounds, severed limbs and severed organs, too. Family members make promises they cannot keep as they connive and betray each other, in secret and in plain sight. It is a greatest hits playlist of Westeros at its meatiest. For an hour, it rattles through everything that made its predecessor, Game of Thrones, such a titan of the small screen, especially when it was in its prime. T he opening episode of House of the Dragon (Sky Atlantic) is simply spectacular.
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