House of the Dragon’s first season sort of started out with a whimper and ended with a bang. Since the season finale last week it’s been a hot topic of conversation, analysis, and anticipation for season two. However, there’s some disappointing news for the latter. HBO Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys has said that season two is expected sometime in 2024, not this time next year like many fans hoped. Dang.
Having once again ignited the internet’s collective passion for dragons, and bad things happening to people near dragons, HBO is now shutting the supply right back down for more than a year. This is per Vulture, which had a recent conversation with network head Casey Bloys, who revealed that you shouldn’t get your hopes up for a second season of Game Of Thrones spin-off House Of The Dragon in 2023.
“Don’t expect it in ’23, but I think sometime in ’24,” Bloys said, as part of a much longer interview focused on the show’s recent success as a hybrid of streaming and linear TV watching. (Among other things, Bloys contends that dropping the show into the old Game Of Thrones timeslot made for a much stronger “appointment television” vibe, even among viewers on HBO Max.) Discussing return dates, the network head was vague but insisted he wasn’t being coy, saying that, “We’re just starting to put the plan together, and just like last time, there are so many unknowns…you don’t want to say it’s going to be ready on this date, and then you have to move it.”
Bloys wasn’t any more straightforward regarding questions about a second Thrones spin-off, which have been kicking around ever since the network issued a wide canvas for possible follow-ups to the massively successful series several years back. (At least one project before House got to the pilot stage, Bloodmoon, only to be rejected by HBO.) RE: a possible spin-off that might also keep the delays away, Bloys only said, “I try not to comment too much on development, so there’s not a whole lot to say, other than when we find the story that George [R.R. Martin] is happy with and we’re happy with, we’ll move forward.
This is obviously disappointing news for fans such as myself who are thoroughly hooked on this show. It makes sense that people were expecting it to come back next year. Filming on House of the Dragon started in April 2021 and it premiered in August 2022. And Game of Thrones followed an annual release schedule, nearly down to the month, with the exception of the final season nearly two years after the penultimate one. Though HotD has all its source material squared away unlike the end of GoT, I begrudgingly admit it makes complete sense that they’ll need to take longer with the second season. The scope is getting bigger and they’ll need bigger set pieces for the dance of the dragons. That final scene did not disappoint (visually, anyway) and it was just the beginning. And I think we all learned from the last two seasons of GoT that it’s better to take more time and get it right than rush to a slapdash finish because you want to move on to Star Wars and some ill-advised confederate show. Like I’ve said before, it seems like the showrunner, Ryan Condal is very aware of the mistakes of the predecessor and he’s been hard at work on season two for months already. But questions about another spinoff?! Don’t play with my emotions like that, but also, maybe let this one have its time in the sun for a while.
They haven’t even started filming season 2 yet. The rumors I hunted down online were all vague and “sometime in the first half of 2023, maybe.” It’s disappointing but if it means the quality of season 2 is a bit more evenly dispersed (season 1 had some real highs and some real lows IMO) then by all means. Would rather they take their time and make sure it remains a project they’re all heavily invested in producing, instead of rushing out a bunch of sub-par episodes with half-baked plots, like the final seasons of GOT.
I’m not sure the showrunner is aware of prior criticisms because they did another ridiculously poorly lit episode like the one which drew intense mockery in S08
I assume the spinoff they are referring to is the Jon Snow sequel series which frankly given the way Season 8 ended, the CIA couldn’t force me to watch.
I was wondering who they could do a spin off on, because so many characters are dead by the end. I think they talked about Arya having one for a bit?
I’m mystified by the justification that HBO had to first gauge interest in the show before working on S2. Was there a chance the show wouldn’t be a massive international hit worth at least two seasons?
I think so, honestly. People really really hated Season 8 (me among them). And the CGI required was probably something they just couldn’t budget without knowing for sure.
That’s true, the CGI is insane. It’s just not as good a story. GoT took years to build up to the real drama and develop the characters (the most important of whom were just children in the first season). Dragon was designed as a CGI-driven action series, banking on loyalty to the original series but not necessarily an identical fan base. Still, it’s a fun Sunday night show, always providing a week’s worth of great memes and online analysis. I also judge HBO pretty hard for cancelling Watchmen and Lovecraft Country without giving them a second season to build a following.
I really like the story myself, because I always preferred the Targaryen storylines and we never saw a real context for Daenerys’s ancestry in the first show. I don’t think it’s not as good of a story, it’s just not the huge ensemble piece story that Game of Thrones was – GoT was dealing with intimate histories and movements of several different noble and royal houses and we saw through their viewpoints, but through necessity House of the Dragon isn’t focusing on those houses beyond how they interact with the Targaryens in the Dance. I remember when Season 1 of GoT came out people complained a lot that there were too many characters and it wasn’t explained enough. We’ll see how this one progresses in later seasons.
I’m okay to wait for this series. I loved the first season. I’m beyond pleased with the showrunners and the writing and the acting. It just feels so refreshing to watch a series where the showrunner is talking about the patriarchy after the episode, there are women writing, there are women directing, and the improvements are obvious, palpable and enjoyable. There is no sexual violence depicted like there was in GOT, which was so off-putting. Having read Fire and Blood, Season 2 is going to be extremely intense.