Sophia Michaels
Less than a week after the official series premiere, House of the Dragon has been renewed for a second season at HBO. The Game of Thrones prequel will delve deeper into the story of House Targaryen for another season following the conclusion of its 10-episode debut season.
“We are beyond proud of what the entire ‘House of the Dragon’ team has accomplished with season one,” Francesca Orsi, executive vice president of HBO Programming, said in a statement. “Our phenomenal cast and crew undertook a massive challenge and exceeded all expectations, delivering a show that has already established itself as must-see-TV.”
House of the Dragon reportedly set a new record for most viewers during an HBO series premiere, drawing in an audience of 10 million in one night. And since then, the total viewer count has risen to 20 million, the network shared.
The Game of Thrones franchise is no stranger to breaking records, having brought in 13.6 million viewers in the initial airing of the divisive series finale in 2019. House of the Dragon rewinds 200 years before the hit show takes place and is adapted from George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” part of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.
“Palace intrigue, and questions of succession and legitimacy, were, of course, a huge part of Game of Thrones, but far from the only part. And they were only sometimes even close to the most fun part of a given stretch of that series,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of House of the Dragon’s first episode.
“Building a whole show around this subject, and filling it all with a gang of mostly dour Targaryens, gives the whole project the air of the Star Wars prequels, which vastly expanded the role of the self-serious Jedi knights without also making room for the humanity and humor of a Han Solo type. Game of Thrones had a rueful sense of humor to go along with its violence and mind games, and highly quotable characters like Tyrion and Cersei. None of that wit or energy is present here.”
