House of the Dragon

We dont watch much television in my home. When we do, its usually something grand or reruns. For instance, we didnt start watching Game of Thrones until 4 seasons in. Didnt watch The Office until it was over.

Now the end of GoT was atrocious and of course we wernt alone in that thought. So when The House of the Dragon was announced, it was a resounding.....meh.

As fate would have it, Netflix again increased our bill and I was all too happy to cancel it. Wife mentions HBO as there are a few things she wanted to see so, no biggie.

Well, HotD launched last night and we decided to check it out.

Not bad, not bad at all. Actually looking forward to next weekend.

Anyone else watch?

originally posted by: JinMI
We dont watch much television in my home. When we do, its usually something grand or reruns. For instance, we didnt start watching Game of Thrones until 4 seasons in. Didnt watch The Office until it was over.

Now the end of GoT was atrocious and of course we wernt alone in that thought. So when The House of the Dragon was announced, it was a resounding.....meh.

As fate would have it, Netflix again increased our bill and I was all too happy to cancel it. Wife mentions HBO as there are a few things she wanted to see so, no biggie.

Well, HotD launched last night and we decided to check it out.

Not bad, not bad at all. Actually looking forward to next weekend.

Anyone else watch?

I went in skeptical and once bitten by how GoTs last couple seasons were.
Came out of E1 of HotD and am back in. Yeah, the first episode of GoTs was far superior, and there are some problems, but it exceeded my expectations (then again, my bar was pretty dismal)

Now, Rings of Power...I fully expect to throw a brick through the television screen...but HotD...this is a watcher.

a reply to: SaturnFX

Were going to give Rings of Power a go as well.

And also as well, expectations are abysmal. However, it would take quite abit of fuggery to spoil Middle-Earth.

I don't even know if Mr. Martin is involved with the new one.

But I refuse to watch, until he gets his butt in gear, with the books.
I started with them, as many fans did, before GOT came out, and feel like we got the shaft.

a reply to: JinMI

i'll be watching... i honestly hate waiting a week for the next episode. i waited til GoT was over before watching it but im glad i did

HotD looks promising but i think they need some heavy hitters in the cast... no one really sticks out as it stands

and they better do justice to rings of power... i've been waiting on that serious for a long time

originally posted by: chiefsmom
I don't even know if Mr. Martin is involved with the new one.

But I refuse to watch, until he gets his butt in gear, with the books.
I started with them, as many fans did, before GOT came out, and feel like we got the shaft.

From Martin himself:

I have seen some comments out there questioning how much I am involved in these new series. The answer is: a lot. Deeply, heavily involved in every one of the new shows.

‘It’s my world, and while I have been working closely with some fantastic writers and showrunners, ultimately it is up to me to try to keep the canon… well, canonical… and to do all I can to help make the new shows great. (And I love these stories too).’

a reply to: Akragon

IMO, I prefer unfamiliar faces, well they are all unfamiliar to me.

Gives it more authenticity if you have nothing relative to the actor.

I enjoyed the first episode. I can see the first few episodes being a little slow , introducing new characters. It’s gonna get crazy though , if I remember correctly there is 21 dragons from the book at this time and I’m sure some of these battles are gonna be epic.

Viserys, Otto ,Daemon and Corlys all did a great job in my opinion.

least this medium is finished work so it would be hard to screw up like ending of GOT ,but i wonder how many who didnt read source material will pick up on the twist

a reply to: JinMI

Not bad at all. Could do without a few of the woke aspects specifically House of Velaryon Driftmark. I don't even mind the move just doing it with that specific house is a slap in the face to real fans! Not to mention it reverse highlights a stupid real world stereotype.

It does have my attention and not as much upset as confused and skeptical about tuings going sideways like season 8 of GOT. HOT D is pretty dam hilarious though.

It was defintely interesting to watch. I wouldn't give it a meh. Alot of potential and amazing production. It probably won't live up to the original game of thrones. Dragons are cool but I'm a little skeptical of MORE dragons.

You can always wait and buy a month of HBO and binge the season.

originally posted by: randomthoughts12
a reply to: JinMI

Not bad at all. Could do without a few of the woke aspects specifically House of Velaryon Driftmark. I don't even mind the move just doing it with that specific house is a slap in the face to real fans! Not to mention it reverse highlights a stupid real world stereotype.

It does have my attention and not as much upset as confused and skeptical about tuings going sideways like season 8 of GOT. HOT D is pretty dam hilarious though.

What is the woke part?

a reply to: JinMI

Ah, there was a severed penis in ep. 1 so what the hell, I'm in.

Ok Ok gods damn it... I just looked at this on my streaming service, and while I never did finish game of thrones (I get lost when a season ends and forget why I enjoyed something to the point of never picking it back up) but there seems to be a lot of good things being said about this, along with the negatives. More the pro than the con.

And I've completely run out of things to watch. Even Code 404 has finished S3... The Sandman caught me off guard with The Dream of a thousand cats interlude, The Orville has yet to be announced for a next season. It's drought season for decent shows. I hate it when this happens, I'm stuck watching turgid things or re-watching something for the 15'th time. Sorry Generation Kill, you're wearing out my neurons...

So why not. I'll have a gander. If I can keep my attention span above 25%. o.O

a reply to: JinMI

I really liked it. I think the writers are trying to redeem themselves.

SPOILER ALERT



That pregnancy/labor scene really got to me. My child was breech and my doctor said in the most serious voice, “if this were a hundred years ago you both would have died”
That scene really illustrated what it would be like and how many women did die like that.

a reply to: JinMI

It was much better than I expected it to be. Hopefully it stays that way.

a reply to: JinMI

Would have rather watched a series about the white walkers.

They were really cool, maybe they will appear in the show?

a reply to: jerich0

Lots of big budget shows running now though. Granted, all are a bit disappointing. LOTR: Rings of Power (RoP) has 60 million budget per episode, that's 4 times as much as GoT season 8, The Mandalorian and See. But then they have an orc "legion" that consists of 2 dozen orcs and looks like a smaller party of orcs than the party of Uruk-hai fighting the fellowship in the first LotR movie. Nothing in that show truly feels 'grand' or 'epic', like the movies and its larger battles, or just the encounter with the Balroq, which already had more orcs in it than the so-called "legion" of orcs in RoP. Oh yeah, and I've seen more rings on display in House of the Dragon (HotD) than in Rings of Power (so far, there's nothing about the actual rings of power in that show).

That said, on youtube there are lots of reviews of both HotD and RoP, saying that HotD is so much better. I think it's worse. The Dance of Dragons story as narrated and drawn in that production that uses several of the GoT actors as narrators for that story, is a lot more interesting than the expensive show that they seem to want to make edgy with some scenes thrown in for shock-value (especially the ridiculous episode 5 with the wedding and inexplicable ending, after episode 1, my rating was 7, after ep.5 it was 5.9), using this style:

They might as well call it Dynasty.

Another big budget show that has just started is Andor (a Star Wars series), so far, not much better than Obi-Wan Kenobi or the Book of Boba Fett. And See (15 million per episode) season 3 is running. Lots of choices between mediocre, below average, crap, and even crappier. Here are my ratings so far (for other comparable shows also):

GoT (8.8, not counting the last season)
The Mandalorian (6.9)
Halo (6.8)
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (6.5)
Obi-Wan Kenobi (6.2)
Foundation (6.1) (with a much smaller budget than these other shows)
The Witcher (6) (season 2: 7)
Andor (6)
The Book of Boba Fett (5.9)
The House of the Dragon (5.7)
See (4.6)

The end of GOT was perfectly in character for the show. I was only a casual watcher as my wife was the fan. So I didn't have emotional attachments to thr characters; I didn't have a preconceived opinion on how the show should end. They ended it the exact way they built it up to end... my only issue is how pitiful the white walkers were; it was a nice long battle scene but they hardly lived up to the build up.


The House of the Dragon is boring. Only the episode last week was worth watching.

originally posted by: whereislogic
a reply to: jerich0
... (especially the ridiculous episode 5 with the wedding and inexplicable ending, after episode 1, my rating was 7, after ep.5 it was 5.9)

It's a 7 again (overall) if the last episode is a 9. Rating per episode: 7,7,8,4,4,6,9,8,8,9.* Didn't like episode 4 much either. I'd like them to build up the dragons a bit more, a bit more about their specialities and comparitive sizes. There's also a nice emotional storyline coming up with the dragons Silverwing and Vermithor which I hope they won't skip (in terms of the build-up for the bond between these 2 dragons, which they can already start with when the Sowing of the Seeds starts in season 2 I hope; yes, I caught up on the lore, I was too curious).

*: this is a fairly generous rating, previously I had: 7,6,7,4,4,6,8,8,8,(8). But I'm giving a bit more credit to the dragon scenes in episodes 2,3 and 7 now. Even though the other stuff in episodes 2 and 3 drag down the rating a bit. The dragons still look amazing and expensive. And episode 10 will have some dragon on dragon action. The first dance if you will.

Regarding Silverwing and Vermithor, if you can't resist (spoiler alert):

The whole lore of the Dance of the Dragons (which story starts around episode 9 in the show, but is mostly covered in subsequent seasons):

Dance Of The Dragons (playlist)

An overview of which dragons are on which side (and some background on the individual dragons):

In the show so far:

Although there's some disagreement regarding the opening scene in episode 7 and which 5 dragons are shown, this guy thinks the one identified as Seasmoke above is Dreamfyre instead (he does have some convenient labels for them):