Yet while HBO has clearly cracked open the piggy bank to ensure the look is as sumptuous as one would anticipate – and composer Ramin Djawadi’s lightly modified score goes a long way in rekindling the mood – such series are built on characters. Martin shares created-by credit for the show with Ryan Condal, a newcomer to the “Thrones” world, with Miguel Sapochnik (who directed some of the most memorable episodes, among them “Battle of the Bastards”) also running the show. Practically everyone seems to be playing angles that suggest they’re a step or two ahead of Viserys, including the Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who wields quiet authority without raising his voice above a hushed whisper.
(As an aside, all those flowing blond-white Targaryen locks should lock up a hairdressing Emmy, if nothing else.) With his wife again pregnant, his teenage daughter Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock), an accomplished dragon rider, realizes that her fate hinges on whether a son is born, as does her uncle’s as another potential successor. The current occupant of the Iron Throne, King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine), is somewhat feckless as monarchs go, so much so that he’s called weak by his brother Daemon (Matt Smith, playing a very different prince from his role in “The Crown”), a ruthless libertine who openly lusts for power. That ratchets up the pressure to sink or swim – or rather, soar or sputter – strictly on its own terms. Martin’s prequel “Fire & Blood,” the new series has the disadvantage of being set almost two centuries before the key events in “Game of Thrones,” taking place 172 years prior to the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.
It’s not bad, and there are dragons aplenty, but it doesn’t produce the sort of characters that defined and elevated its predecessor to prestige-TV royalty. HBO has followed the majesty of “Game of Thrones” with what might be called “games of throne” in “House of the Dragon,” a series whose epic visual grandeur belies a smaller and less addictive power struggle, more narrowly focused on the Targaryen line.
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