House of The Dragon Season 1 Episode 1 Review

[Herbert Playz]

Wow, season 1's production value is sky high. This is only the first episode but the world of Westeros is so much better adapted than in the original game of thrones series. Every single scene is just oozing set up. Not a single scene was wasted in episode 1.

I can feel George RR Martin's influence throughout this new season. The iron throne looks much closer to Martin's original idea, Kings Landing looks gorgeous, and did you see the dragon pit? The world just feels much more epic and alive. Also the heraldry seems to have received a much stronger focus. During the tourney we saw many different coats of arms and Daemon Targaryen's armor looked incredibly menacing. The attention to detail here is fantastic.

Corlys Velaryon and Otto Hightower are obviously the two juggernauts on the small council. Everyone else seems to be little more than window dressing.

I love how the show is developing Rhaneyra and Alicent's relationship. Showing them as close companions as young girls is going to work beautifully.

The dragons all look great. Even though they have saddles on their back they still look incredibly wild and unpredictable. I wonder just how much screen time they'll receive this season. I would have loved to have  CGI direwolves in Game of Thrones, so we could have seen them in their true glory. I hope the showrunners find a way to put the dragons in every single episode this season.

That birthing scene was heavy. It was an extremely controversial decision by Viserys because he didn't speak to his wife about it at all. The way the scene was filmed made it a tough watch. I'm a bit surprised that their wasn't more fallout from that decision. One thing that I felt was captured very well in the original Game of Thrones were the secrets. Someone was always watching and sharing secrets to someone else. Viserys decision felt like the perfect way to start some intrigue in the royal court and create a breach between him and Rhaneyra.

Overall this was a great first episode for the season. I give it a 9 out of 10.

[Herbert Playz]

I just want to emphasize again that House of the Dragon has exceeded all my expectations. I did my best to try to manage my expectations for this show due to the disappointing way things ended with the last season of game of thrones. 

But this show has won me over. Its not perfect but thats okay, what show is, today I've read that episode 1 actually totaled nearly 25 million viewers!