House of the Dragon

Mist said:

even Sex and the City.

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Mist said:

All of these shows start off with incredibly strong characters established very quickly into the first episode.

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I know you had a good chuckle at the Velaryon son introduction. We're supposed to care about this guy, after we failed to care about his father.

HERE'S ANOTHER PAPER THIN BLACK CHARACTER. ARE YOU CARING YET?

No, no we aren't

Looks like everyone watched it Monday via streaming / rerun due to the long weekend. 16 million for episode 3. Also if anyone wanted proof that Neilson is out of the game this would be it, unless its a cable tv show their metrics are generally useless unless they get access to the first party data.

The real test for this show will be the time jump when the younger actresses are replaced by their older counterparts. I think that is supposed to be episode 5, I know it wasnt in the 4 episode review releases HBO sent out.

Yeah, a live first viewing drop during a holiday weekend is not that surprising. The week total will be the more telling metric when there's so many ways to consume shows now.

I was gonna say, I watched it Monday, cause long weekend Monday is Sunday and it's streaming so I can watch it whenever I want. OG game of thrones (and other shows) usually skipped Memorial day weekend, or would have their worst neilsen rating of the season that weekend.

Angerz said:

I was gonna say, I watched it Monday, cause long weekend Monday is Sunday and it's streaming so I can watch it whenever I want. OG game of thrones (and other shows) usually skipped Memorial day weekend, or would have their worst neilsen rating of the season that weekend.

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Don't say things like this, you will make jayrebb sad.

not sure week to week streaming numbers mean really that much, most shows start our poorly and grow over years. For example Game of Thrones premiered to just 2.2m viewers first episode, 9m viewers in its first season, 25m viewers an episode by season 5, and the final season was up to 46 MILLION fucking viewers per episode. That is just insane.

end of the day word of mouth will drive subs and views and retention and that plus awards are all these services care about.

if you're not feeling sad already strong rumors going around that at the end of the Rings of Power season 1 run, Amazon is going to announce their big next massive project, a Mass Effect TV series. The people behind Westworld are already working on a Fallout TV show for them (being filmed now).

Damn....video game movies and TV shows are blowing up.

huh didnt know all these were in dev. Golden Empire sounds interesting if its the Yi Ti aka Chinese Empire, white people would be the joggers in that show

Deathwing said:

Daenerys survives, unharmed, a whole night in Khal Drogo's funeral pyre. That was in the books and the show didn't change it(much?). Don't know if that's a Targ trait though.

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I read it as "worthy" Targs who are capable of being dragon riders are fire resistant, at least to magical fire.

according to grrm, daenerys in the funeral pyre was a magical event and she and others are not immune. as far as i can tell he has not commented on fire at the dothraki temple. which appears to be totally on d&d.
hotd show runners apparently stated they would not be immune, but don't see any quotes.

jayrebb said:

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They checked Episode 2 out, gave it a chance-- no hook.

Try better casting next time HBO. Oh and get some character-building and writing for Hightower and Velaryon.

I don't give a fuck if the show is a character study of the Targ throne/king or not. You know damn well people wanted a GoT-like experience. Deliver it. Establish those guys on the King's council.

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And just like everything else woke, they'll hide behind racism or sexism as an excuse.

It wasn't the shitty writing, it was that everyone is a bigot. So they'll try again, hiring shitty writers to pump out some bullshit, insert some diversity hires, and when people tune out repeat the cycle.

I actually found myself enjoying the third episode, but it also highlights some glaring flaws of the series so far:

- Episode 1 was a weak as hell start

• Having an actual title sequence would have certainly helped set the mood better than an instant reminder of the trainwreck finale of the original show via Daenerys timestamp. Not that the title sequence (or direct copy of a theme song) is fantastic, mind you; they could have used it to better establish exactly what we were getting into with this first episode instead of dropping us mid-subpar joke about looking at the wrong end.
• None of the characters were captivating like the original, nor were they worthy of piquing our interests. Again, we're just kind of thrown into the middle of this as though we're supposed to already know these people enough, but we' obviously don't.

- Episode two felt more like a direct continuation of part 1 despite a time jump and really would have helped drive the plot forward had the two released simultaneously or they went with an extended first episode.

• We had some good conflict with the bridge scene at least.
• But then we also have some kind of retarded conflict regarding the proposal between the king and the toddler.
• Overall the major players are still poorly introduced to us.

- Only by the third episode does the king finally start to feel like a real character, but the pacing is a bit fast for how little we still know (and thus care) about the characters or Houses. It also sucks that just when I'm starting to warm up to Rhaenyra's character, I also know that they're going to swap her out eventually.

The biggest criticism I'd hold is not even towards the show itself, but the real life people behind it who for whatever reason felt the need to whip out the idpol defense initiative. Not everything has to be about today's world, and certainly not via some Lit 101 farce of a chronologically implausible political statement. There was no need to come right out of the gate acting like people had a problem with a wealthy black guy in the show, either. Come on, man; Xaro Xhoan Daxos was in the first bloody season and don't pretend Salladhor Saan didn't exist. Hell, the latter was a pirate and seafarer who was friends with Ser Davos, so we're already clued in that there are darker skinned folk to the East and this isn't Hobbiton.

A genuinely good show should be able to just... release without any meta-commentary from the directors/writers/actors telling you what to think or how to feel or why you should feel bad and hand them your subscription money. These tiring tactics just scream desperation, even if it wasn't fully warranted in the first place, and jumping to the defensive right out of the gate is going to rub people with more than two brain cells to rub together the wrong way because it's condescending to anyone above the lowest common denominator.

It's no secret that Rangz was always going to be HotD's #1 competitor, but it was also no secret that Amazon and co were pulling out several decks of race and gender cards not just out of the gate, but before the gates were even finished being constructed. HBO could have just followed some of the most tried and true strategy of just shutting the fuck up and letting their product do all of the talking for them instead of immediately presenting weakness. What all of these major media producers still fail to understand is that if you so much as sow the seeds of some kind of ulterior "message" or whatever, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb as anyone remotely clued into this bullshit waits for the other shoe to drop as the show or movie goes full retard. Hopefully HotD doesn't take the easy/stupid way out given the nature of its themes that would be ripe for some total woke hacks and instead eventually delivers a solid total package. For me, the show is at least on a better track than I would have figured because of how much of an uphill battle they would have just because of the original series' godawful conclusion, never mind the potential for succumbing to easy woke points and ruining anything they already had.

Ep4 any good?