Ha, HOTD doubters, you failed to topple the House of the Dragon. With the overwhelming success of the premiere episode of House of the Dragon, HBO has already greenlit a second season to the Game of Thrones prequel series.
House of the Dragon got so much hate from so many commentators, media outlets, and “professional” commentators/opinion writers prior to the release of Episode 1-Heirs of the Dragon that one might have thought the show was going to be a bust. I heard and read everything from “HOTD is going to be boring”, “The Targaryens are weird”, “Nobody wants to see Game of Thrones universe again”, “Season 8 of GOT was awful, so HOTD is going to be just as bad”, and the strangest thing I read, “HOTD has so much hype around it that we should all ban together and not watch just to stick it to HBO”.
Don’t believe me on that last one? Check out this article by Scott Woods from the New York Times. How are articles like that one even approved to be published by a major newspaper/media organization?
Anyway, those “professional” opinion/commentator writers have all failed to bring down the Targaryens and their dragons as HOTD was watched on HBO by approximately 10 million US households at the 9PM timeslot. Furthermore, not only has that US viewership rating climbed to over 20M people who have watched the shows in the days following the premier, but also that the promotional material (ex: trailers, teasers, ads, etc.) reached approximately 130M households worldwide.
Sorry, Scott, but your plan didn’t work.
Still, House of the Dragons may have been able to attract a large audience for its premiere episode, but it needed said episode to be great to retain the millions that watched. And, boy, was it great.
Every single aspect of the show, from the writing, set design, acting, dialogue, costume design, and overall feel of the show was masterfully done, further proving these “professional” opinion/commentator writers and voices wrong. That’s why HBO greenlit a second season after only one episode.
Regardless, like I said, I’m super excited that HBO has officially announced HOTD for a second season, even though it was probably a forgone conclusion anyway. Hopefully, tonight’s Episode 2 will be as good, if not better, than Episode 1 was.
Image Sources: Featured Image: (HBO) (Weeks Ahead Trailer | House of the Dragon (HBO) – YouTube)
Other Sources: (New York Times) (Opinion | Let’s Not Watch the ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel, ‘House of the Dragon’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com))
