I must preface this review by revealing that I did not pay for this. A friend lent me the show without telling me a single thing about it. I did not pay for it because THE GAME OF THRONES insulted fans in the later seasons. I could not believe that anyone would give any related show a chance. I certainly didn’t, until I saw it for free, and I feel stupid for wasting my time despite knowing that it was pointless to invest any attention to any material from this franchise of betrayal.
The Game of Thrones was entertaining for the first four seasons, but the shows started feeling like television-writing, with heavy use of exposition. One example is when the fat-ass brought the woman who cuckolded him to his father’s home. During dinner, the fat-ass and father talked about a sword on the wall. I knew that the sword would be stolen or otherwise appear in the next scene or two, and sadly, I was right. “Exposition” is when characters say things to each other that is meant for the viewer, not each other. Well, that’s one definition, but the show degraded so far that ALL forms of exposition were frequently used.
There were many stupid behaviors that are also silly television-writing, like in the final battle when defenders left the protection of the castle walls and engaged the enemy. I can go on, but the point is that the battle was ridiculous.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is much worse.
There is no nudity, even when characters enter a brother or some sort of medieval sex club. This tells me that the show was made for a particular audience rather than to tell a good story. It’s filtered for imbeciles.
Another whammy is that a group of people who are similar to albinos are played by Africans. I almost spit out my beer. Black people are playing albinos. Did the producers think that we would be fooled by the white-hair wigs? Seeing this makes it impossible to take the show seriously.
The race-swapping of characters is another indication that this is not a good story. The show exists to entertain a certain type of viewer, and I am not the target audience. When I watch loosely-based medieval fiction, I don’t want to see such a ridiculous straying from reality. Yes, it’s a fantasy tale, but it is a fantasy based on certain rules. I love the FRIDAY movies, but I don’t love race-swapping.
As I ranted about this in an online chat. I joked that casting directors in modern movies are actually human-resources managers who are adamant about afformative-action, and a member said something about Hollywood requiring something similar to human-resources. I think it has more to do with shows and movies requiring certain diversity and strong female roles, blah blah, or else the work will be ineligible for awards, but I don’t know if this is true. Whatever the explanation is, I am fearful of watching anything new because I don’t believe that modern shows or movies are focused on stories. It’s all propaganda and gimmicks.
Getting back to HOUSE OF GARBAGE, there is a wimpy man who is portrayed as a warrior. In typical television-writing, he can fight fifty men and barely get a scratch. Oh wait, he gets shot through the leg with an arrow, but he can still run toward his enemy after fighting ten million warriors who fight him only one at a time. Shouldn’t such silliness be left for afternoon television shows meant for teens?
That wimpy male is also pure evil, which is not something I want to see. It’s childish. Then again, the target audience of this show is not people who read or have social intelligence.
I could not finish the show. I wanted to quit after the first half hour, but I felt like I had lost so much money at a casino that I should play a little more with some hope of diminishing my loss, but each minute was like losing another hundred dollars. I ultimately had to stop. Even if George Martin personally appeared on screen and said, “Just kidding. Thanks for enduring this hell. For your trust, you get a hundred dollars, and now you can watch the REAL show. I hope you enjoy this prank.” I would not have continued.
I am deeply saddened that there will be a second season. I had seriously believed that the backlash to this show would be so venomous that the show would be canceled. I did not watch RINGS OF POWER or WHEEL OF TIME because I knew they would be garbage. Viewers rejected the bastardized shows, which sent a message to the creators. I held hope that more such backlash would force studios to respect the stories or to just abandon the projects if they couldn’t refrain from inserting propaganda and other nonsense. Humans have let me down.
When I was a teen, I started reading the fantasy books by Raymond E. Feist. There is a television deal for an adaptation, but I am not excited. I will not watch a single second unless I am assured that the show was made in the spirit of the books. I hold no hope.