Each new episode zips along, its concise presentation never shortchanging character or narrative intelligence. Schemes and themes that were meticulously, and often tediously, set up in Season 2 pay off with swift, delectable complications — twists best discovered firsthand.

The series is better than ever, and the new season will have you hanging on every single moment.

Thankfully, this adaptation is finally beginning to explore the core themes of Martin’s novels. While there are certain changes in character motivations that don’t necessarily work, the politicking that once felt lackluster actually has consequences, and watching these events unfold is more thrilling than ever.

So long as this momentum continues, we can certainly count on House of the Dragon season 3 to prove us wrong about Game of Thrones endings.

This review is only based on the first four episodes of Season 3, which is to say that Season 2 was also amazing up until Rook's Rest in Episode 4, and things could certainly change in the back half. But as it is now, despite all the stumbling blocks along the way, House of the Dragon is still spectacle TV worth tuning in for.

More dragons did not have to mean less humanity, and yet the balance remains off in a show that is dazzlingly bombastic but disappointingly shallow.

It tries its best, even giving Rhaenyra a speech about having the “weak and feeble body of a woman”, which borrows almost word for word from Elizabeth I’s famous address at Tilbury before the Spanish Armada arrived. But this points to an essential difficulty I have with this show: all too often it feels so old hat, so reheated and, well, so, so boring.