One of the most polarizing aspects of House of the Dragon has been the time jumps. To arrive at the Dance of the Dragons Targarye civil war, the series creators advanced the timeline multiple times. And after episode 5, House of the Dragon jumped ten years into the future and replaced the younger versions of Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) and Alicent (Emily Carey) with Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, respectively. On his blog, series co-creator George R.R. Martin addressed the divisive time jumps and expressed his belief that the show should run at least four seasons.
Although Martin wishes there was more time to provide additional backstory and exposition, he is still “thrilled” with how the series turned out.
“If House of the Dragon had 13 episodes per season, maybe we could have shown all the things we had to ‘time jump’ over… though that would have risked having some viewers complain that the show was too ‘slow,’ that ‘nothing happened,'” said Martin. “As it is, I am thrilled that we still have 10 hours every season to tell our tale. I hope that will continue to be true. It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish.”
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Martin also shared his praise for last Sunday’s episode, “Lord of the Tides,” which was well-received by fans and critics.
“[It] was everything I hoped it should be,” noted Martin. “Kudos to Eileen Shim, the scriptwriter, to Geeta Patel, the director, to our incredible cast… and particularly to Paddy Considine, for his portrayal of King Viserys, the First of His Name. The character he created (with Ryan and Sara and Ti and the rest of our writers) for the show is so much more powerful and tragic and fully-fleshed than my own version in Fire and Blood that I am half tempted to go back and rip up those chapters and rewrite the whole history of his reign. Paddy deserves an Emmy for this episode alone. If he doesn’t get one, hey, there’s no justice. Meanwhile, I am going to give Archmaester Gyldayn a smack for leaving out so much good stuff.”
House of the Dragon episode 9 airs Sunday night, October 16, on HBO and HBO Max.
Do you agree with how Martin views the time jumps in House of the Dragon? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Photo Credit: Christopher Polk/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Recommended Reading: The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume One
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