Well, episode 1 was... kinda meh? Not bad, but I was pretty bored until the last 20 minutes or so.

It was basically about as good as the least interesting episodes of GoT seasons 1-5.

 

I'll give the first episode a B.

Like, it looks fucking gorgeous. 100% strongest aspect of the episode. Some good direction from Miguel Sapochnik, who directed a lot of the big battle episodes from GOT was always one of the best visual directors of the original series (except for when he kindof forgot about lighting in the Long Night). Use your good tv for this one.

Writing-wise, well it's too early to really tell but it seems fine. I think they dramatized things well and got the general ideas they wanted to across. A lot of table setting, but they did manage it. There was a story being told in this episode and they successfully did so, which is encouraging. May have been a bit blunt in places, but it worked. Long term I have some thematic concerns, but that's a post for another day.

The biggest weak point, particularly compared to the original series, seems to be the characters. We still have time to flesh them out, but right now it's just kinda lacking. The original series introduced a lot of characters in its pilot but it did a great job of establishing them and making them memorable, considering the size of the cast. Not all of them, but enough of them. D&D weren't good with character arcs of course, but they had some really good character introductions - not all of which were using book material. Here... not so much. Rhaenyra is the central character and while it was fine, well, hopefully it gets better once Emma D'Arcy takes over. I just don't have the feeling that this character could lead a series.

There was always a certain theatricality and willingness to chew some scenery in the original series, and (most of the time) they wielded it well. It wasn't cheesy, but there was some ham. And the characters always had depth and an emotional truth (most of the time), so it's not like they were sitcom characters. I think it's part of why they were able to introduce characters so well; they were a bit larger-than-life and thus memorable right out the gate. I think it's part of why GOT had a lot of good quotable lines; they were willing to go a bit over the top, they had actors who could sell it, and the lines were put in a context to make them ring. I think it's part of why GOT was able to achieve such great success overall; the characters were memorable and allowed to be fun, but there was (usually) a grounded emotional truth going on that allowed the drama to feel real. I think the lack of a true and grounded inner truth might be behind some of the more notable failed characters in the later seasons like Euron or the Sand Snakes. Hammy performance, some pulpy lines, but no depth or core truth.

House of the Dragon, or at least its pilot, doesn't have any of those strengths with its characters. It's not that the acting is bad or anything, but the characters all just come off a bit flat. And sure, the touch of ham style isn't the only way to write a tv show, as long as you hook me on the characters. But they didn't hook me on the characters. They set the table for their plot very well. This episode is basically backstory for the show to come. And hey, there's a long timeline to the show so they do have the room to make up ground. But they really need to fix this, because I don't think the show will work if you can't nail the personal drama. I just hope that they decided that they can flesh out the cast over time here.

The exception here is Matt Smith's Daemon Targaryen, who was given great material to work with and did a damn good job of it. Daemon is a character who feels like he fits in the GOT world. Paddy Considine's Viserys was pretty good and they did the second best job with him, but damn Daemon came out as the character in this episode. He was easily one of the highlights and what convinced me to watch next week. Hopefully it will be worth it.

tl;dr, the episode functioned. I think they broadly succeeded at most of what they tried to do, they just didn't do everything they needed to do especially with their cast. It got its plot table setting taken care of, so hopefully it can flesh out its cast better going forward. GOT was always at its best when it was character-driven. I hope that lesson wasn't forgotten.

 

I watched GoT, but also read the books during the first season and stopped watching the show about a season after they got away from the books, when the dialogue and story got super shaky.

I think House of the Dragon is going to be good. It's got the production value of late-season GoT, a completed story, and despite the fact that it already has to come up w/ filler/dialogue like late-season-GoT (original story was history-book-text) it's actually good at both.

So like the best of early season and late season GoT. High production value, good dialogue & plot, and a Byzantine political intrigue. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt until I'm shown it doesn't deserve that.

 

Matt Smith is fucking amazing.

I still hope for a surprise cameo of Viserys I upon the black dread. Balerion was Viserys' only mount.

But yeah. I enjoyed the everfuck out of 1.01. Matt Smith y'all. I'm glad there's a 0 to 100 storytelling structure here. There's nowhere for directors to take hints and make their own shit.

Also fuck the Greens.

Anyway I'm excited to see old ass Rhaenys upon the red queen Meleys above Rooks Rest. Just to see what they do CGI wise with old ass Rhaenys

 

I enjoyed the first episode, but I think GOT had a much stronger opening. Really, the premiere of GOT was a masterwork. This was... competently put together. It introduced the major players and established the conflict between characters. The tourney sequence stands out above the rest of the episode.

As for the actors, tbh I don't buy Matt Smith's Daemon yet, but it was only the first episode. I think Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra was very good--she brought some humor into the episode.

 

I liked it. I read somewhere online that the nature of the show would be more like The Crown than GoT and in that mindset let me enjoy it more since I wasn't constantly comparing it to GoT.

It was a pretty eventless episode, but they were clearly setting the table w/ Otto, Alicent, Rhaenyra, Daemon and it worked. My friends who didn't read Fire and Blood had a pretty good idea of who's who after this and that was probably the intention.

 

r/freefolks memes are on point (spoilered because, well, spoilers)

Spoiler

 

GoT up until the 4th season had great dialogue to borrow from the books. This series has no dialogue from books to stand upon and it shows. It seems like dialogue isn't going to be one of the shows strengths; no dialogue of note during 1 hour, no ideas. Only some mild feminist tones. Meh

Perhaps good for an action series like GoT in later seasons if you're into that. I probably won't watch this show.

 

Yeah, dialogue just... existed. The first episode of GOT had plenty of qutoable lines, Winter is Coming chief among them.

 

Spoiler

When Daemon trips Hightower's horse in the joust instead of hitting the rider, was that unsportsmanlike dirty fighting and simply no one dared call him out, or is this an allowed play? Any ideas? It's obvious Daemon chose Otto's son to try and fuck him up. In the first pass Daemon took a hit and I thought he decided to be a total cunt and broke the rules.

 

Pretty much my position as well, really doubt that they can write the personal touch that GoT characters had between each other and some actors comments about doing a "cleaner" GoT soured me to the show.


If it revives the ASOIAF fanfic scene i will watch it but i doubt that it will have strong enought cultural impact for that.
There isnt a Jon or Dany.

 

Spoiler

Not explicitly against the rules, but it was certainly frowned upon. In real life medieval jousting circa 1300, when the sport sortof materialized as thing, there just would not have been any upside to aiming for the horse.

A) You could severely harm the horse. Chargers able to bear armored riders were expensive as fuck. Depending on the stakes of the match, you'd either be financially responsible for dealing damage to your opponent's property, or damaging your own potential property if the horse itself was on the stakes.

B) It was unchivalrous. And being unchivalrous could lead to absolute societal and financial ruin.

C) It would have indicated that you sucked ass at jousting, because the aim was to hit the knight and unseat them. The first ever formal jousting rules established that if horse and rider both fall on one side, and just the knight fell on the other side, the side where the horse fell as well would win the tilt.

Pre-1300 though, jousting was still basically a form of duel. There were no real rules beyond unseat your opponent and kill/capture them.

In Westeros World, where everyone and their mother is a conniving asshole, I don't think it stetches belief that the more brutal form of the sport would be entertainment.

 

Daemon/Rhaenrya. Don't let the incest hit out you on the way out.

 

If you feel smart reducing Jon and Dany to incest and comparing then to bootleg Cersei and Jaine, you do you.

 

Gave it a whirl chiefly out of a lack of anything else notable to watch and had... Mixed feelings. Matt Smith is brilliant in everything he does but he's almost too recognisable a face. I can't not think of him as Matt Smith playing a Targaryan.

Overall, it was decent and I'll continue to follow it but I'm still waiting for that "Fuck me" moment.

 

I agree that they would be better with someone less well known. A great actor, but to well known.

 

Not ‘round these parts.

 

Damn. Already renewed for season 2.

 

That doesn't surprise me at all, I'd say it's getting the four or five seasons that the show runners want unless it utterly bombs, which doesn't seem too likely.

 

Is syndication at 100 episodes still a thing?