TV review: House of the Dragon has dragons and tastefully shot orgies
House of the Dragon: Set almost 200 years before the timeline in , this one focuses on one family, the Targaryens
Have you put off watching House of the Dragon (Sky Atlantic, Monday and Now TV app)? Do you think it will just spoil your memory of Game of Thrones? Or do you think it’s a no-go because you didn’t catch the original and you’re not in the market for what a friend of mine describes as 'dragon porn'?
Think again. I’m two episodes in and it’s a winner. It has dragons and tastefully shot orgies to please the fans.
But a newbie will be drawn into in 5 minutes anyway. Set almost 200 years before the timeline in , this one focuses on one family, the Targaryens. They are the global superpower because they have 12 fire-firing dragons and everyone else has none.
So rather than the warring families in Game of Thrones, this is all about one family fighting it out to succeed the king.
The king here is King Viserys I, played by Paddy Considine. Viserys is nice and therefore vulnerable because bad things happen to nice people in this world. He’s also got a nasty looking sore on his back which is short-hand for ‘will die from this unless someone kills him first'.
The favourite is his brother, Prince Daemon, played by Matt Smith. If you thought Joffrey was a bad un in , wait until you see Daemon. Joffrey was both spiteful and out of his depth. Daemon is brooding and dangerous and straight out of Shakespeare.
Matt Smith played Prince Philip in The Crown, sulking half the time because he has to bow to the monarch. He’s clearly in his element here, basically playing Daemon as Prince Philip with knobs on.
He’s not the only one with his eye on the throne. The king’s daughter and only child, Princess Rhaenyra, reckons she has a shot as long as the King doesn’t have a son. (You wouldn’t say the Targaryens were hyper-woke.) Just as it looks that he might have a son, the Queen dies in childbirth and the baby along with her. Cue all kinds of machinations, including the superbly named Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who sends his daughter Alicent as a tawdry gift to the King, to see if he can get on the line of succession.
And succession is the word. House of the Dragon is like everyone’s favourite TV show, Succession crossed with The Lion King. It works because it’s believable. Princess Rhaenyra never says she wants the throne, we’re just told so by a series of glances when she realises that it’s up for grabs.
They’ve unfurled the start of some interesting plot lines. Good luck to the cocky knight who defeats Daemon in a jousting tournament, makes ‘how you doin’’ eyes at Alicent Hightower and then gets chosen as a royal bodyguard by Princess Rhaenyra.
This won’t end well for any of them. I can’t wait to watch episode 3.
