The first season of the American fantasy drama television series House of the Dragon premiered on HBO on August 21, 2022, in the United States and concluded on October 23, 2022. It consists of ten episodes, each of approximately 1 hour. The series is based Fire & Blood, a prequel novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin, adapted for television by Ryan Condal and Martin. Following the conclusion of its predecessor series Game of Thrones, in October 2019, HBO ordered the first season, which began filming in April 2021, primarily in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal.
The story takes place upon the continent of Westeros, set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. The season follows the rise of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen to the throne after her father King Viserys I Targaryen chooses her as his heir. However, Viserys' decision breaks an inheritance principle and a century tradition of only naming male heirs, which leads to a turmoil that slowly starts to divide the House Targaryen, while Rhaenyra struggles with the responsibilities of being the heiress of the Iron Throne. As the tensions between the Targaryen's grow, the Hand of the King Otto Hightower conspires to ursurp House Targaryen and place House Hightower as the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms, by having his daughter Alicent Hightower married with Viserys and fathering the Prince Aegon II Targaryen.
House of the Dragon features a large ensemble cast, including established actors such as Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, and Graham McTavish. Newer actors were cast as the younger generation of characters, such as Emma D'Arcy, Milly Alcock, Emily Carey, and Fabien Frankel. Critics praised the character development, visual effects, writing, Ramin Djawadi's score, and performances; Smith's and D'arcy's performances as Daemon Targaryen and Rhaenyra respectively, received multiple accolades. However, the pacing, specifically of the time jumps, and the dark lighting of some scenes were criticized. The first season won one of the nine Emmy Awards for which it was nominated, with one of the nominees being for Outstanding Drama Series. The series premiere was watched by over 10 million viewers across the linear channels and HBO Max on the first day, the biggest in HBO's history. A second season was ordered in August 2022.
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In 2015, with Game of Thrones still in production, HBO executives approached A Song of Ice and Fire writer George R. R. Martin regarding possible successors or spin-offs to the series. In November 2018, Martin stated that a "potential spin-off series would be solidly based on material in Fire & Blood." Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss stated they wanted to "move on" from the franchise and declined involvement in subsequent projects. By September 2019, a Game of Thrones prequel series from Martin and Ryan Condal that "tracks the beginning of the end for House Targaryen" was close to receiving a pilot order from HBO. The following month, House of the Dragon was given a straight-to-series order. Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, who won an Emmy Award for directing the episode "Battle of the Bastards", were selected to serve as showrunners.
Casting for the first season began in July 2020. In October 2020, Paddy Considine was cast as Viserys I Targaryen. Considine was offered a role in Game of Thrones but declined due to the fantasy elements of the series. Condal in a 2020 interview stated that Considine was their first choice for Viserys. By December, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, and Emma D'Arcy were cast as Alicent Hightower, Daemon Targaryen, and Rhaenyra Targaryen, respectively. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Smith stated he was initially hesitant to star in a Game of Thrones prequel but accepted the role after learning of Considine's attachment to the project.
In February 2021, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, and Sonoya Mizuno were added to the main cast. By April, Fabien Frankel joined the cast as Ser Criston Cole. In May, Graham McTavish was spotted on set in full wardrobe. In July 2021, Emily Carey and Milly Alcock were added to the cast as younger counterparts of Alicent Hightower and Rhaenyra Targaryen, respectively. The time jump midway through the first season prompted the casting of multiple actors for the same role.
Principal photography on the ten-episode first season of the series began in April 2021. The series was filmed primarily in the United Kingdom. House of the Dragon was the first production to be shot at Warner Bros. Leavesden Studios' new virtual production stage. On July 18, 2021, a positive COVID-19 case forced the pausing of production for two days. The Spanish publication Hoy reported that House of the Dragon would be filmed in the Province of Cáceres in western Spain between October 11âÂÂ21, 2021. The provincial capital of Cáceres along with the medieval town of Trujillo were used in scenes for King's Landing. From October 26âÂÂ31, the series was filmed in Portugal at the Castle of Monsanto. The majority of season 1 was shot using Arri Alexa cameras; specifically Alexa 65s for the main camera and the Alexa Mini LFs as additional cameras.
Locations in Cornwall, England included St Michael's Mount, Holywell Beach and Kynance Cove. Other locations included Castleton, Derbyshire, in areas such as Cave Dale, Eldon Hill Quarry and the Market Place. Some scenes were shot in Aldershot, Hampshire. In February 2022, HBO confirmed that the first season of House of the Dragon had wrapped production. Visual effects for the series were produced in part by Pixomondo, who worked on Game of Thrones and received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Visual Effects. In October 2022, it was reported that the OSVP stage at Leavesden Studios, used in the series, was shutting down.
It was announced in February 2021 that Ramin Djawadi would compose the series score. Djawadi and the showrunners opted to retain the original theme song, "Game of Thrones Theme", for House of the Dragon. The song debuted in the opening credits of the second episode. For the first season, Djawadi, along with Condal and Sapochnik, watched each episode and made notes on when the music should occur and what mood the music should set.
The 44-track score album was released by WaterTower Music on October 24, 2022, a day after the season finale premiered.
House of the Dragon premiered on August 21, 2022. It is HBO's first new series to stream in 4K, Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos on its sister streaming platform HBO Max. The first episode was released for free on YouTube on September 2, 2022. The first-season finale was leaked online the week before the actual air date, with the full episode appearing on torrent sites. According to HBO, the leak came from a Europe, the Middle East and Africa partner and it will "aggressively" monitor for additional leaks.
In New Zealand, the series will be distributed by Sky's SoHo TV channel and Neon streaming service. In India, Disney+ Hotstar is set to distribute the show. In the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the series will air on Sky Atlantic. In Canada, House of the Dragon will be available on Bell Media's Crave streaming service and its HBO linear channel.
The first season was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray (including a SteelBook special edition), standard Blu-ray, and DVD on December 20, 2022, and contains over an hour of behind-the-scenes features.
On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season holds an approval rating of 90% based on 875 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Covering an era of tenuous peace with ferocious â albeit abbreviated â focus, House of the Dragon is an impressive prequel that exemplifies the that distinguished its predecessor." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the first season received a score of 69 out of 100 based on 43 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Reviews for the first season were positive, with critics praising the writing, directing, score, and cast performances. Lucy Mangan of The Guardian called the show a "roaring success" with Lorraine Ali of the Los Angeles Times stating the show mirrors the acclaim of the early seasons of Game of Thrones. Reviews pointed out the reliance on Martin's work was one of the reasons the series fared better critically than the later seasons of its predecessor, specifically the last season. The cast also received praise, with Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Emma D'Arcy, and Olivia Cooke being singled out for their performances. In an interview with GQ, Considine stated that Martin told him that "Your Viserys is better than my Viserys". The diversity of the characters was mostly met with praise, with Jeff Yang of The New York Times stating that diversification of the cast can help the series gain a more diverse audience. The series was included on multiple critics' top ten lists of 2022, including Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, and Polygon.
The show's first season received criticism for the depiction of violence, pacing and cinematography. Reviewing the early episodes, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly said the series leaned too much on grand imagery and lacked the breakout supporting characters that Game of Thrones had. Before the premiere, Martin stated that the series is similar to a Shakespearean tragedy with each character being morally grey with no "character everybody's going to love". The Guardian stated the "dullness" of the characters makes the series more of a period drama than an action-adventure fantasy. The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times cited the constant actor changes as a reason for the lack of emotional attachment to characters. The graphic violence in the season premiere with a failed caesarean section was criticized for being excessive, and according to USA Today, "exploitive and in poor taste". The time jumps throughout the first season were also noted for being jarring and causing confusion, while Martin defended them as being "handled very well". In addition, the dark cinematography in episode seven was a point of criticism from both critics and fans. HBO responded that the dimmed lighting in those scenes was an "intentional creative decision". Game of Thrones faced similar criticism regarding the lighting of scenes in its eighth season, with one of the show's cinematographers stating it was a "deliberate choice". In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter before the second season premiere, Ryan Condal said that the lighting for the upcoming season would be changed after listening to the feedback from the previous season.
The day after the series premiere, HBO said the episode had been viewed by an estimated 9.99 million viewers in the U.S. on its first night of availability â including linear viewers and streams on HBO Max â which it said was the largest single-day viewership for a series debut in the service's history, dethroning Euphoria. After one week of availability, the viewership rose to nearly 25 million in the U.S. across all platforms. Nielsen estimated that the episode was watched by 10.6 million viewers on HBO Max in the first four days, with the number increasing to 14.5 million when including the viewership on the main HBO channel. Samba TV meanwhile stated that 4.8 million U.S. households streamed the episode in the first four days. The series was also popular on social media, with the show premiere being the number one trending topic on Twitter and Google Trends.
The finale of the first season was watched by 9.3 million viewers across all platforms during its premiere night according to HBO, which was the highest viewership for any finale of a HBO show since the series finale of Game of Thrones. The show averaged 9âÂÂ9.5 million viewers for an episode on premiere night and 29 million total viewers after a week of release.
Nielsen stated in November 2022 that 35% of the viewers of the show were in the age range of 18âÂÂ34. Similar to Game of Thrones, the first season of House of the Dragon was extensively pirated. According to TorrentFreak, it was the most pirated series of 2022, ahead of ' and other series.
House of the Dragon received nine Primetime Emmy Awards nominations in 2023, including Outstanding Drama Series, winning one for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes. In 2023, the season won the Golden Globe Award Best Television Series â Drama, while Emma D'Arcy earned a Best Actress in a Television Series â Drama nomination.