Paddy Considine as King Viserys and Milly Alcock as Milly Alcock as Princess Rhaenyra in "House of the Dragon."I prepared myself to be disappointed by the “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” because I absolutely loved “Game of Thrones.” Even the ending.
The prequel, which airs Sunday at 7, 8:10, 9:55 and 11:40 p.m. on HBO and streams on HBO Max, gets off to a very strong start. I’ve seen six of the 10 episodes, which range from good to great. No spoilers here, but “House of the Dragon” is filled with palace intrigue and all about the considerable conflict in the extended Targaryen family over the succession, and it’s going to get a lot worse toward the end of season 1. And both sides have dragons.
There’s a time jump between the fifth and sixth episodes — adults have aged, adolescents are suddenly adults, children have grown considerably and more children have been born. Several of the characters are played by older actors. And that requires a bit of figuring out who’s who all over again.“House of the Dragon” starts out both smaller and bigger than “Game of Thrones.” It’s smaller, in a way, because most of the action takes place in King’s Landing.
There are a lot of other similarities, which shouldn’t be surprising since they’re both based on Martin’s books. It’s violent to the point of being grotesque. There’s nudity and relatively explicit sex scenes. There’s family and political intrigue, surprisingly shifts to alliances and startling plot twists.