In the days before “Dragon House” aired, the level of anxiety at HBO reached new heights. The skepticism in the television industry in the United States regarding the chances of success of the prequel series to “Game of Thrones” was almost a consensus, and the prevailing claim was that fans of the series who were disappointed by the final season – and especially the final episode – of the adventures of the dragon queen and the Stark family in Westeros, would not be in a hurry to return to the world designed by writer J and Reg R. R. Martin. Last night, HBO announced that the anxiety was unnecessary: the number of viewers of the second episode of “Dragon House” reached 10.2 million, two percent more than the premiere episode.
The first episode that aired last week set a record for the premiere of a new series on HBO with 10 million viewers during the broadcast, and almost 25 million in total in delayed viewing (for comparison, the opening episode of “Game of Thrones” drew 4.2 million viewers and was considered a success), this without counting the tens of millions of pirated views around the world. The fact that in the second episode there was no dramatic decrease in the number of viewers, as many thought would happen, indicates the high interest that “Dragon House” continues to arouse among the audience and apparently also satisfaction with the plot and characters presented in the premiere.
Last Friday, even before the broadcast of the second episode, HBO announced the order of a second season for the series. The viewing figures of “Dragon House” still do not approach the records of Game of Thrones (17.9 million viewers during the broadcast of the premiere episode of the eighth season), but compared to most of the other hits of the American premium network, this is a dizzying success. Just for the sake of proportions: “Euphoria”, HBO’s biggest hit in recent years, peaked at 6.6 million viewers in the final episode of its second season.
The good news about “Dragon House” comes to HBO just in time, after the network has been going through a shake-up in recent weeks as a result of the decision of its parent corporation, Warner Bros., to merge the popular streaming service HBOMax into the new streaming service Discovery+, a move that is already leading to mass cancellations of productions in -HBO and to a severe disappointment among subscribers. Will “Dragon House” save the world’s leading television brand? Now there is a situation.
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