HBO Orders Targaryen Show to Series, Eclipses The Long Night

It’s been less than a year since Game of Thrones went off the air, and despite the controversy and disappointment surrounding the way it all ended, the show, and its character, will forever hold a spot in the hearts of TV fans. In fact, HBO is so bullish about the franchise’s popularity, they have had multiple spin-offs in the works for months.
Thanks to the heaps of backstory, and side story, and history, embedded within mastermind George R.R. Martin’s epic series, the GoT extended universe is broad, and HBO had a lot of material from which to spin another successful series. Yesterday, after months of speculation about exactly which stories would be told, we finally got some news.
In something of a shocking twist, the Naomi Watts-starring project, centered on the Long Night and based thousands of years before the start of the original show, has been dumped. This may not be a Red Wedding sized shocker, but Watts is a well-known star, and the pilot had already been shot. Apparently it wasn’t up to snuff for Home Box Office, so winter has come for that effort.
Don’t fret, though, because fresh on the heels of that disappointing news was the announcement of a show that did make it to series, despite, unlike the unofficially-titled The Long Night, having had little in the way of production-based chatter. We got some info recently, and now we know it’s a go.
According to Variety, the story HBO chose to focus on comes from the GoT companion book “Fire and Ice” and takes place a mere 300 years – as opposed to the failed show’s thousands – before the events of the original series. It will be called “House of the Dragon” and will tell the story of House Targaryen. Ya know, Daenerys’s house? The one with the dragons?
Obviously, Dany won’t be featured, nor will her father, the Mad King, but as we reported earlier this month, George R.R. Martin did drop some hints about the potential subject matter on his blog, but didn’t narrow it down. Or mention a title.
So we don’t know much, but we know it’s coming. It’s 10 episodes, it’s written by Ryan Condal (Hercules, The Colony), who will run the show alongside Thrones veteran Miguel Sapochnick, and it will feature the Targaryens. And dragons.
Which is good enough for us.