Watching: House of the Dragon S1

2022, download

If I recall correctly, the original pitch for a "Game of Thrones" prequel was supposed to be set some thousand years before the first series. That was probably considered too much of a rift between what people already know & like and something new. Instead, this series is about two hundred years prior, while the Targaryens, a family line descended from magic-using & dragon-rearing Valyrians,  still reigned. 

That said, there are like 900 other spin-offs also "in production".

What 100. House Targaryen rules the land under Viserys. He has only a teenage daughter and needs an heir. His latest attempts kills his wife and newborn son. His dick brother Daemon thinks he should rule. His daughter Rhaenyra just wants a chance to prove herself. After her mother's death, her dad shacks up with her (also teenager) best friend. After much consternation, Rhaenyra agrees to marry a cousin, but is named heir (gasp!). Some time jumps later, her dad dies and his wife usurps the throne for her son, while Rhaenyra has married her uncle and plans a war to reclaim her crown.

1 Great. I struggle to find the great in this series, that I delayed in watching properly because I was so "meh" about the last few seasons of its origin show. So, I guess I will just have to make the easy choice, and say, "the dragons." This show takes place before the dragons became legends of the distant past, so House Targaryen, and cousins House Velaryon, are still known for raising and riding dragons. We get to see a lot of them in flight, and in fight mode. In a show that is mostly British-period-style political machinations, its nice to be reminded it is a fantasy show with the mighty terror of the dragons.

1 Good. Most of the show is not bad, and not scream-at-the-TV annoying like the last few seasons of Game of Thrones (this blog started when that show started; how the fuck did we never write about it?!?). So, I guess that covers the good? It is decent in pandering to what made the original series popular with the broader audience -- lots of politic-ing both in the throne room and in the bedrooms. The characters are all challenging and strongly built, with few weighing on the perfectly good or perfectly bad sides. If I was to say I had a favourite character, it would have to be Daemon, because he was always such a scene-chewing bastard even when he was doing things I hated. Matt Smith embraced the debauchery of his Targaryen character's family line, and he just did as he saw fit, even after numerous times having it just not work out.

1 Bad. The first series got lots of ick-vs-titillation (?!?!? seriously?) via the incestuous brother & sister coupling from the Lanyards... cough... excuse me, the Lannisters. And it is said quite clearly in the predecessor series that the Targaryens practiced incestual breeding in order to keep Valyrian blood in the family, and strong. So, despite being content accurate, I did not need to see the weird attraction between teen Rhaenyra and her 30ish uncle Daemon. It all just seems to be played up to cause an uncomfortable thrill in the audience, which is a weird & odd choice, given the show dials back majorly on the tits & full frontal, like every second scene, from the origin show.

Further meta, though I usually do what Kent does in his "Meta" section at the beginning, but I had one further thing to mention. Opening Credits. We all remember the theme score and the wonderful animated toy-machine-map for the original series. They majorly cheaped out in this show by re-using the music, not even a different mix, and building an entirely boring opening sequence. Meh's continue.