HBO's highly anticipated "Game of Thrones" prequel "House of the Dragon" finally arrived Sunday, and it certainly has quite a few dragons, plus violence, sex and palace intrigue. It's a slice of the "Thrones" world, mostly within the walls of the Red Keep in King's Landing (that's the palace in the fictional nation's capital, if you've forgotten since "Thrones" ended in 2019).
The first episode of the series, one of many potential spinoffs HBO developed to keep the "Thrones" mania going after the finale, has a lot of work to do, setting the table of players in Westeros – mostly the ruling Targaryen clan and their courtiers – 172 years before Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke in the original series) was even born. Much like the first episode of "Thrones" all the way back in 2011, there is a lot of exposition, a lot of very similar-sounding names (Rhaenyra and Rhaenys, for starters) and hints of more drama and dragons to come. It is not, perhaps, as bombastic as many fans would hope and, worse, does little to establish the characters as sympathetic or even intriguing (a weakness that doesn't go away, at least not in the first six episodes made available for review).
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