House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones prequel/spinoff)

[Andrew NDB]

Is anyone watching this? I didn't expect to like it much but it's pretty well done. Not sure about how every episode is skipping forward many years. I guess the entire younger cast gets recast in an episode or two because they're skipping forward 18 years?

[ProphetofGanja]

I don't hate "Hot D", but I can't say I'm really enjoying it either. It seems like it's trying too hard to recapture the glory days of Game of Thrones, and it just seems like we're on a different vibe now. That last season of GoT was such a poison pill, I feel like people are still put off when it comes to grandiose fantasy worlds mixed with "gritty realism" like classism, sexism, and warfare.

I'll keep watching it since I still haven't gotten around to reading Fire and Blood, but I imagine I'll like the book much better than the show. So far the show is just such a mixed bag, I hope we get either more big action set-pieces soon or more compelling drama.

[Andrew NDB]

It is similar to the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones in that it feels like we're less getting solid character development, organic growth and proper arcs and instead we just are forced to breeze over bullet points in a synopsis.

I don't understand the rush. Are they looking to get to the Mad King by season 4 or something?

[ProphetofGanja]

Eh, I think that's more a symptom of the book they've adapted for television, since Fire & Blood is really more like an in-universe historical record and less a narrative tale. So they're having to create dialogue from scratch and do those big time jumps you mentioned to hit the main story beats, as opposed to the Song of Ice and Fire books, which were more "ground level" and "real time", as it were.

But yeah, everything just feels super rushed. But then this one fvcking guy is still just standing around nailing ppl to posts and watching crabs eat them

[Andrew NDB]

Does anybody else see "Young Leonardo DiCaprio in drag"?

[ProphetofGanja]

lmao no, just you I think. I thought the actress was cute enough, I was bummed when they did the time jump since now her character is played by a different actor

Did anybody watch last week's episode? I was pretty tuned-out at first but when the Kid Fight scene came on it definitely drew me back in; the rest of the episode dealing with the fallout of that was pretty good, too.