You have proven yourself most accommodating - and more accomplished than one would think

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 TV shows of 2024

#16 :  House Of The Dragon

After a strong first season that established the pre-Game Of Thrones Targaryen rule, and set up the fight for the throne between Team Black (Viserys’ daughter and named heir Rhaenyra, played by Emma D’Arcy) and Team Green (led by new Queen Mother Alicent Hightower, played by Olivia Cooke), the next stage of the fantasy epic unfolds. Thanks to several misunderstandings – including a cryptic death rattle, a beheaded baby, and the Targaryen’s insistence on calling multiple offspring Aegon – both sides are heading for a war doused in dragon-fire. The new season ticked all the boxes a successful return to Westeros requires, with the political moves becoming increasingly intricate, the character drama more intense, and the battle scenes taking things up a notch.

I caught up with Season 1 a couple of years ago and thought it was considerably better than I was expecting, with a very strong ending - so I meant to catch up with this when it came out, but I completely failed (there was a lot of telly out there last year!).

And to start with I really could have done with a catch-up to remind me who was who and who'd been eaten by dragons - I found myself somewhat at a loss as to who was who and what was going on to start with. But I got there in the end...

It's all nicely tense and has some nice talking around the table or in shady corners scenes, but there are also plenty of action scenes - often involving dragons if you like that sort of thing (and the dragons are done remarkable well here). The overriding theme is of revenge (which, of course, ramps up as the season progresses) and it's a good driver for discussion, plotting and action, although far too many people make decisions off their own back and just run off to do something mad - it's no way to run an kingdom, I can tell you! 

I know some people thought the whole thing was a bit too slow and I can definitely see that some bits of it would have resulted in plenty of people shouting "get on with it" at the telly but I quite liked the intrigue and pace (although I don't think it's as well put together as Game Of Thrones at its peak). It did however have a peculiar final episode (particularly when compared with the previous season) - it set up an awful lot, but delivered remarkably little (so I feel they're confident they're getting another season).

Olivia Cooke and Emma d'Arcy are both excellent in their roles as frustrated mothers, but this season does suffer in comparison to the previous one because they are separated for most of it, but they do get a juicy scene right at the end. Most of the other women are somewhat underwritten but, particularly for someone I've never seen before, Gayle Rankin as Alys shares some good scenes with Matt Smith (who is also somewhat underwritten across the season for me). And finally Sonoya Mizuno is also good as Mysaria, but she's hardly on screen either!

Most of the men in this are either bastards or useless, so it makes it hard to exactly root for them but Tom Glynn-Carney as Aegon and Ewan Mitchell as Aemond are both good, even though both characters are remarkably unpleasant (but the fact that you hate them is to their credit, I guess). Rhys Ifan as Otto Hightower is also good, but for plot reasons isn't overly used and Fabian Frankel also shines as Cristin Cole - and he actually gets a bit of a character arc. Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong also does a fine job, but you'd expect that because he can do that sort of thing in his sleep.

I think that part of the problem here is that there's such a large cast here that most people feel a bit underused, This means you can go an episode or two without seeing someone and you forget how they fit in - also, bizarrely, they then introduce someone who appears to be a major character at the beginning of the final episode. It also doesn't help that a lot of them have very silly names and very silly wigs!

I enjoyed this - it took me a bit of time to remind myself how much I enjoyed the first season, but once I got there I raced through the rest of the episodes pretty quickly. The problem it has is that if you've not watched GoT, then there's absolutely no point in starting here - and whilst i think it's a journey worth making if you're into that sort of thing, it's quite the challenge to get through it. But what am I saying? If you're into that sort of thing, you've probably already watched the lot and certainly don't need my thoughts on the matter. But, in case you're just forgotten to catch up on this season, I think it's worth it and it's on Sky.

And finally, I'm intrigued to compare this with TLOR : The Rings Of Rower, which is considerably higher up Empire's list - whilst neither of them appear on The Guardian's list.

#17 - Much better than I was expecting