House of the Dragon
Most House of the Dragon fans were not very pleased about the extremely anti-climactic season 2 finale this past weekend, given that it felt like it should be leading into a big battle next week, not two years from now.
Showrunner Ryan Condal has responded to that feedback and offered some level of an explanation to journalists at a virtual press conference. What it ultimately comes down to? Budget, and the use of it spread across multiple seasons.
“One of the challenges of making television at any scale [is] nobody has infinite time and resources. When you’re a showrunner, you’re always in the position of having to balance storytelling and the resources that you have to tell that story.”
Condal says that he wants to give the Battle of the Gullet the “time and space” that it deserves. Though some fans would argue the “time” would have been the entire eight episode season. But here, you can see the results of what may change when you cut down ten episodes of season 1 to eight in season 2, no doubt yet another budget-based movie with episode costs estimated at under or around $20 million an episode.
House of the Dragon
While Game of Thrones has always been heavy on VFX, House of the Dragon has…a lot of dragons, tons of FX work that is no doubt hugely costly almost each and every episode.
However, with the Battle of the Gullet launching season 3 in two years, it then stands to reason there will be a lengthy break before more action anywhere close to significant. I do wonder if one of the reasons it was pushed is because it might span two weeks instead of one.
While HBO has indeed found success with House of the Dragon it is not a repeat of the sky-high, world-changing Game of Thrones numbers, despite costs being the same or higher, which can be an issue. Not that Game of Thrones did not face its own host of issues with budget, leading to shorter seasons or often skipped battles as the story progressed.
Still, it seems like there was a better way to structure this and at least have some climactic turn in the finale, even if it wasn’t the full battle. There was not that, and as such, a consistently negative reaction to the final across the board, capping off a season where many fans believed not enough happened from start to finish due to languishing plotlines and characters stuck in certain places. We’ll see if that changes for season 3. In two years. Two whole years.
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