"House of the Dragon," Season 1: review

[WARNING: spoilers.]

Affectionately referred to as "Hot D" (for the initialism "HOTD") by its aficionados, "House of the Dragon" is yet another project that gives old, lazy author George RR Martin an excuse not to produce the next A Song of Ice and Fire novel, The Winds of Winter. Martin serves as executive producer of the show, with each episode of the series being ably directed by the likes of Miguel Sapochnik (director of some of the best "Game of Thrones" episodes) and Greg Yaitanes (involved with the series "House").

The series undergoes a few time jumps, including a major ten-year jump, so the principal cast changes as some characters who were teens suddenly reappear as adults. Among the stars who remain constant are Paddy Considine (King Viserys Targaryen), Matt Smith (brother Daemon Targaryen), Rhys Ifans (King's Hand Otto Hightower), Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake), Eve Best (wife Rhaenys Targaryen), Sonoya Mizuno (Mysaria), Fabien Frankel (Ser Criston Cole), and Graham McTavish (Ser Harrold Westerling, head of the Kingsguard). Major stars who switch out (there's a clean break between Episodes 5 and 6) are Milly Alcock/Emma D'Arcy (younger and older Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen) and Emily Carey/Olivia Cooke (younger and older Queen Alicent Hightower). Other characters also get played by multiple actors as they age, but they are too numerous to list here.

A quick-and-dirty summary of the series would be that it's a prequel to "Game of Thrones," set close to 180 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen. The series focuses on the royal machinations that lead up to the great war of succession known as The Dance of the Dragons, in which Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen—heir apparent to the Iron Throne—essentially crowns herself queen and is pitted against former friend Alicent Hightower, who also becomes queen (as the wife of Viserys) and misapprehends the final wish of her dying husband. Viserys was trying to say something about the legend of Aegon the Conqueror, but Alicent misinterpreted his final words, thinking he was talking about elevating their son, also named Aegon (in this series, the reuse of names becomes both annoying and confusing, something the show actually exploits to dramatic effect), to the kingship. If the king had really been talking about their son, this would have represented a sudden break from a position the king had held for years: that his daughter Rhaenyra should become queen upon Viserys's death. Alicent, perhaps too eager to place her own progeny on the throne, tells the Small Council after the king's death that young Aegon must be king.

The show takes its time building up to that moment, throwing us into the middle of a convoluted mass of castle intrigue propelled by all the usual human venalities. King Viserys rules at the end of an age of peace and prosperity originally presided over by his predecessor and grandfather, King Jaehaerys I Targaryen (Michael Carter). Viserys regularly cuts himself on the Iron Throne, a great seat made of still-sharp swords all melted and welded together. Viserys's wife Aemma (Sian Brooke) dies after a primitive attempt at a C-section is performed on her. The son from her womb dies shortly after. The King's Hand, Otto Hightower, craftily sends his young and beautiful daughter Alicent to go look after the saddened king, who begins to take a liking to her. Alicent is not happy about being used as a pawn, but she does her duty as a matter of political necessity. Alicent is childhood friends with Viserys's daughter Rhaenyra, and while the king has named Rhaenyra as his successor, there are rumblings that having a woman sit the Iron Throne will not go over well with the populace. Viserys's brother Daemon is something of a wild card, being combative and impulsive. Daemon may also have a thing for his niece Rhaenyra (Targaryens think nothing of incest). One of Viserys's most powerful subjects is the Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, whose surname's resemblance to Valyrian is no coincidence as the Velaryons also have Valyrian blood running through their veins—but instead of being dragon-riders, the Velaryons have taken to the sea as master sailors. The Velaryon sense of history also runs deep, though, and this causes tension between Viserys's line and Corlys's. Several attempts to seal the bond between the two families result in awkward betrothals, as when Rhaenyra is married to Corlys's son Laenor (played by Theo Nate, then Matthew Carver, then John MacMillan). Laenor is a homosexual, a fact that Rhaenyra tolerates. She makes an arrangement with her husband that they must periodically perform their marital duty together, but they are each otherwise free to be with whom they like. These attempts to conceive a child result in no progeny. But Rhaenyra sees Ser Harwin "Breakbones" Strong, and with him, she secretly conceives several healthy young boys, who are subsequently hounded by charges of bastardy. For a time, Prince Daemon—after killing his estranged wife Rhea Royce (Rachel Redford)—is himself married to Corlys's daughter Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell), but when a pregnancy goes wrong, Laena begs for her dragon, the venerable female Vhagar, to kill her. Rhaenyra's kids by Harwin Strong grow, as do Alicent's kids, each with his or her own special character, often unsavory. Eventually, we get to the moment where the king dies, and Alicent misinterprets her husband's dying words, setting the stage for the Dance of the Dragons, which I suppose will take place in Season 2.

"House of the Dragon" had to overcome a great deal of fan hatred and disappointment after "Game of Thrones" ended. "Game of Thrones" basically ran out of GRR Martin's material (because, frustratingly, Martin still hasn't finished writing the A Song of Ice and Fire series), and when showrunners D&D (Dan Weiss and David Benioff) were forced to create their own ending for the series, they failed miserably, unable to evoke the complexity of character that had made "Game of Thrones" so popular for at least four seasons before the story hiccups began in Season 5. By Season 8, "Game of Thrones" had gotten so bad that even the lead actors in the series, like Emilia Clarke, were openly mocking it in interviews. "House of the Dragon" had to deal with a tidal wave of bad karma. It didn't help that initial previews of the new series showed what appeared to be race-swapping and other PC moves—things that made right-leaning critics reflexively and preemptively lump the show in with the likes of other "woke" efforts like "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," "The Witcher," and so on. The Velaryons are black, are they? And still of Valyrian blood?

Then HOTD actually aired, and people were hooked. Many rightie critics publicly took back their earlier scorn and lauded the series for its solid story and complex characters, often mentioning how good HOTD was in comparison to the awful "Rings of Power." I was, admittedly, among the people worried by the race-swapping, but having watched Season 1, I now think the race-swapping actually adds to the story of two very divergent family lines. (The Velaryons, though black, have the Valyrian trait of pale hair.) The difference in race between the Scandinavian-looking Targaryens and the decidedly dusky Velaryons also adds an important subtextual undercurrent of tension. And if this story centers on the power struggle of two strong women—Rhaenyra and Alicent—well, what of it? No one cares because these are two women written well, unlike the one-note Galadriel who Mary Sues her way invincibly through every situation in "Rings of Power," all while nonchalantly trampling Tolkien's canon. By contrast, no one in HOTD comes off as a flat character. Daemon Targaryen, played with a combination of cynical smugness and animal intensity by Matt Smith (who is about as far from his previous role of Dr. Who as an actor can get), isn't simply a wild card: he cares that his brother, King Viserys, is dying of leprosy, and when Daemon's wife Laena dies, Daemon is truly sad in that moment. His vulnerability to the charms of his niece Rhaenyra also reveal other dimensions to his character. The same goes for all the other characters in the series, both major and minor. Every role is complex and convoluted, as mysterious and incommensurate as the existence of this world's competing religions.

Production values for the series are very high, from the practical sets to the beautiful locations to the costumes to the special-effects scenes mostly involving dragons and the effects of sword blows. This was a series crafted with care. I heard there was one mistake that crept in involving King Viserys's leprous pinky: Paddy Considine's finger had been covered in a green-screen material, and the unfinished special effect was somehow missed and allowed to show in the final cut. I think that, by the time I binge-watched Season 1, the mistake had been corrected for us streaming-TV viewers: I never saw the error myself (or maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough).

A whole slew of actors deserve praise for their excellent performances. I'll join the crowd of critics who offer their highest praise to Paddy Considine as the slowly deteriorating King Viserys, a man who simply wants all the fighting factions around him to be at peace. HOTD is, of course, the story of a Targaryen civil war, though, so peace isn't what we're going to get. Matt Smith, as Daemon Targaryen, commands the screen every time he appears. While he's not quite at the scary level of the best Tarantino villains, he does have an air of tension, menace, and barely repressed violence about him—a trait that will appear, here and there, in some of the younger generation as well. Eve Best, as Rhaenys Targaryen, is positively matriarchal whenever she appears; her character is a tough, worldly warrior-grandmother with a polished-yet-gruff exterior, but there are hints and glimmers that she carries a spark of hope for the future. Steve Toussaint's Corlys Velaryon exudes stern authority; as Toussaint plays him, Corlys is convincingly a wily Sea Snake, a master of the seas and commander of the realm's most formidable navy. Graham McTavish, who has established himself in plenty of other films (he was the muscular, warg-killing dwarf Dwalin in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy), doesn't have much to do in his role as Ser Harrold Westerling, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, but he makes an impression—and in this role, he's allowed to speak with his natural Scottish accent, which somehow lends his character an air of authority and gravitas.

The ten-year time jump that causes some major changes in the cast leads to a few jarring transitions: the actress playing the older Rhaenyra, Emma D'Arcy, looks markedly different from Milly Alcock, who portrays the young Rhaenyra in the first five episodes. The transition was less jarring for the character of Alicent: Olivia Cooke, as the older Alicent, looks a lot like Emily Carey, who plays the younger Alicent. That said, Emily Carey has something of a carefree innocence about her, whereas every time Olivia Cooke appears onscreen, she looks as if she's about to burst into tears. I'm trying to decide whether that's a good thing. I imagine she looks constantly stressed because the adult Alicent has the responsibilities of a queen.

While the series contains paroxysms of action, much of the story is devoted to dialogue and moments of brooding. This is a thoughtful story that allows us to marinate in the emotion of the moment, to ponder implications and consequences, to mull over layers of meaning. It's also a show that expects us to keep a slew of names and faces straight in our heads; far from insulting our intelligence, the series assumes we will keep up with the time jumps, the new faces, and the various plots, plans, and conflicts.

That said, there were at least three aspects of Season 1 that bothered me. None was bad enough to be a deal-breaker, but all three served to take me a bit out of the show. First was the music, again by "Game of Thrones" composer Ramin Djawadi. For the most part, the background score was good in Season 1, but Djawadi did overuse, in my opinion, one female singing voice for those brooding moments (see here). This particular leitmotif became grating to me; it should have been used more sparingly. The second thing to bother me was the casting of Milly Alcock as young Rhaenyra. Call me superficial, but Alcock looks almost... how should I put this... unformed. With her small eyes and jutting jaw, she's not what would be called cute by normal standards. This isn't a dig against her acting talent: Alcock is a fine actress: her voice, at least, is more mature than her face. It's just that there's something about her look that makes me feel as if she'd been miscast. When the time jump happens, and Emma D'Arcy takes over in the role of Rhaenyra, I recall feeling some relief. The third problem was with the character of Mysaria, a former slave who becomes Daemon's on-again, off-again lover and a sort of "mistress of whispers" with a network of servants and child-spies to overhear all the important happenings in King's Landing; actress Sonoya Mizuno, who is Japanese-British, chooses to play the character as having an accent that sounds like a mashed-together combination of French and generic-Asian. The result is horrific to my ears, and it makes the character more annoying than she'd otherwise be. Mizuno is, as always, easy on the eyes (she played the mute servant/sex robot in "Ex Machina"), but I really wish she had adopted any other accent than the one she employs to such painful effect in the show.

If I were to voice another complaint about the series, it would be this: the dragons sometimes represent lost opportunities—opportunities to show, in a deep way, what the human-dragon bond is like. There's a moment in the early episodes where Daemon takes an arrow to the shoulder while riding his dragon Caraxes the Blood Wyrm. Daemon cries out in pain, and Caraxes roars reflexively, almost as if there existed some sort of telepathic or empathic bond between dragon and rider. That sort of thing deserves exploration. I recall, in "Game of Thrones," that Tyrion Lannister, who has Targaryen (and therefore dragon-riding) blood, finds himself talking to a dragon, and the great reptile seems to understand him. It's one of the best moments in the series, but it never gets developed. With "House of the Dragon" having the word dragon in its title, my hope is that the series will, over the seasons, explore the human-dragon connection more fully than "Game of Thrones" ever did.

I can't rightly compare "House of the Dragon" to "The Rings of Power" because I've chosen not to watch the latter series, having relied on a series of critical examinations by other commentators (that do include video clips from the show) to allow me to form an opinion about it. "The Rings of Power" sounds positively horrible, and given the clips I've seen and the commentary I've heard, I know the character of Galadriel has already earned a place in the pantheon of Most Hated Characters Ever. But the same critics who have mercilessly disparaged "The Rings of Power" have almost universally praised "House of the Dragon," and having seen Season 1 of HOTD for myself, I can affirm that the praise is justified. HOTD has its flaws (e.g., I'd like to see the Sea Snake in action, carrying out some badass exploits), but it is a well-written and morally complex series peopled with dimensional characters who all have complicated motivations and allegiances. I've never read the source material on which the series is based, GRR Martin's Fire and Blood, but as long as this show's showrunners stick with the material and respect the canon, I'm optimistic that the next few seasons of the show will do well. Watch HOTD, a very adult series (both in terms of the naughty scenes and in terms of its mature intricacy), with my approval.