Forget Prime Day, forget the World Cup – watch this huge returning HBO series tonight
House of the Dragon is back, baby!
It's a busy week in the wider world right now, and if you're anything like me you're getting bombarded with Prime Day deals and World Cup hype – but you might fancy a break from either or both of those things before too long. After all, it's possible to get a little carried away with the need to buy things from Amazon, and it's definitely easy to make bad decisions where early-hours World Cup kickoffs are concerned.
Because of how much airtime the World Cup has rightly been sucking up recently, I think the return of House of the Dragon has been a little under-hyped, to be honest, although a second season that kept plates spinning without much decisive action might have played a part there, too.
It is back, though, and however you access your HBO shows, you should now be able to watch the first episode, and I really recommend that you do! It's a big one, with a major battle unfolding at sea, and most of the main characters being given something to do.
Frankly, I'd also recommend that you follow in my footsteps and watch HBO's own recap of the first two seasons, too, because they're labyrinthine in retrospect. The fact that it's 15 minutes long on its own is a good indication of how much ground it covers, too.
I'm going to avoid spoiling anything about the opening episode of the third season, obviously, but I think it showcases what's great about the series (as well as some of its limitations). Principally, it's operating on a grand scale in the fantasy genre when few rivals are willing to commit to similar ambitions.
There are so many characters, and so many locations, and all of them look pretty sumptuous – with a high-budget sheen that you can basically see in every scene. It also has a continued and brutal willingness to kill off characters that really is refreshing, even if those plot points come from the source material.
That said, the show also suffers from some of the plotting conveniences that plagued the last few seasons of Game of Thrones, with characters thwarted in unsatisfying ways or by issues that should be minor (like locked doors, in this case), and I'm hoping the rest of the season is a little more decisive on that front.
We'll know over the coming weeks, as the season continues to air on a Sunday evening in the US, making Monday evening the night to watch it here in the UK. I'm doing so through Now, using an Entertainment pass, but with HBO Max now on our shores you've got options for how to access it.
