Beany wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2026 9:16 pm
House of the Dragon S3
Well christ, if they'd finished S2 with that* I think most people would have shut the fuck about the pacing being slow.
Lets see how it goes...
* (S2 of HotD was supposed to be ten episodes, and it was supposed to end with this - but then WB cut it down to eight eps, then almost immediately after, the writers strike happened and so the showrunners couldn't rewrite anything to make the pacing better upon pain of lawsuits from the unions, hence why it felt so weirdly empty as a season - it literally had no ending)
Seasons done now, more satisfying and better paced than S2, but as the first two episodes were basically the end of S2, that means S3 only had six episodes - and before WB fucked about, it was meant to have
ten episodes (all seasons got their eps cut down) so there's still pacing issues and some connective tissue issues, as it were - IE one character has a wife who dies, and that feels like it really needed more meat on the bones, but much of it had to be cut due to a lack of time. There's a few secondary plotlines that feel like that.
That said the bulk of the story rattles along at a decent pace, they have a good 'conceptual' episode in there, and the acting and surface level writing (IE the lines and delivery) is, across the board, fucking great. Just feels like some of it is missing a bit. But by god it has some
moments. Actually quite a lot of them. Just paced a bit oddly sometimes.
I can cut the season some slack for that, but S4 won't have an excuse, really.
I'd say a solid 7/10 across the series, with some episodes being actually great, and some being a bit less cohesive but still decent modern telly.
If you're a bit dubious about it still, wait till S4 is out in a couple of years, then binge the lot, I maintain that I strongly suspect it'll work a lot better like that.