Maybe ‘House Of The Dragon’ Can Revive ‘Game Of Thrones’ After All

This week, HBO announced that it would renew House of the Dragon for season 2, which is not a huge shock, but it comes in the wake of the show putting up some record-setting premiere numbers for the channel, which may have pushed up that announcement. No need to wait and see with that strong of a start.

The show seems to be satisfying both critics and fans as well. An 83% critic score, 85% audience score and an 8.9/10 on IMDB is about as high as I would have expected after the burned bridges of Game of Thrones season 8, and the fact that it’s that high signifies the show has really done something right here. And depending on who you ask, that thing may be ditching David Benioff and DB Weiss, and bringing back George RR Martin to consult.

Martin made comments last week that talked about Game of Thrones moving into the Marvel/Star Wars model, and some people rolled their eyes at that. But it’s not a joke, and with how strong House of the Dragon is starting, it’s not unthinkable either. WB/HBO very much wants their own equivalents to what Disney Plus has, and with DC in something of disarray and Harry Potter something of a pariah, that leaves Game of Thrones as a key megafranchise.

There are multiple Game of Thrones series in the works spanning every portion of the timeline of A Song of Ice and Fire, most of which are based off Martin’s works in some form or another. The most controversial project is Kit Harrington pitching a “Snow” series where he would return as Jon Snow after the events of the main series, something that has no Martin source material to draw on, and would be the only show actually continuing the plot of the original show rather than being an era-specific prequel. But Martin seems on board for that one, too.

As for House of the Dragon, the most common praise I’ve seen for the show is that it feels like Game of Thrones season 1 again, full of palace intrigue rather than getting lost in giant battles. It also boasts a dramatically slimmed down cast and set of locations, at least so far, which breaks from the spread-out formula of Thrones which scattered its characters to the wind. It’s a more focused story.

What I’m really curious about is the concept for season 2. I’d previously heard the showrunner talk about House of the Dragon being a potential Targaryen anthology series, so a season 2 might not follow these same characters again, instead moving backward or forward in time to a new set. That might push its luck if you spend a whole season getting to know a very specific cast, but we’ll see what they do. In any case, this is a strong start for the concept of a shared Game of Thrones universe across multiple shows, and it’s managed to make everyone forget about the original, horrific Thrones finale for a time.

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