Summary

House of the Dragon Season 3 will have 8 episodes, following a trend of reduced episode counts.
Fans hope for longer episodes to avoid pacing issues like in Season 2.
The decision for shorter seasons may be due to narrative restructuring and budget constraints.

With House of the Dragon’s third season still a year and a half away, if recent rumors are to be believed, the season will likely toe the line of the preceding season in terms of its episode count.

House of the Dragon Season 2 premiered in the summer of 2024, continuing the dramatic tale of the Targaryen Civil War, known as the "Dance of the Dragons." However, the season fell short of expectations, receiving lower ratings from both critics and fans compared to its predecessor. Among the most significant criticisms of House of the Dragon Season 2 was the season finale, "The Queen Who Never Was," which many described as disappointingly anticlimactic. Fans largely attributed the season's lack of impact to its reduced episode count of just eight, which they argued led to rushed pacing and underdeveloped plotlines. Despite these grievances, there was hope that the third season 3 would return to the longer episode format to properly address the major events left hanging.

Criston Cole and Gwayne's hosts leaving the Red Keep in House of the Dragon.

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By Bisma Fida

However, according to House of the Dragons on X—a reliable source unaffiliated with HBO—House of the Dragon Season 3 will maintain the format of the previous season with an eight-episode count. This is coming off the back of an update from actor Rhys Ifans that the third installment of the Game of Thrones prequel will "start shooting this year."

If the rumors about House of the Dragon Season 3 are true, it will continue a disappointing trend that started with Game of Thrones' penultimate season and extended into its prequel. The first six seasons of Game of Thrones each featured ten episodes, as did the first season of House of the Dragon; however, Seasons 7 and 8 and Game of Thrones were significantly shorter, with just seven and six episodes respectively. A recurring pattern lies in these seasons with the less-than-expected episodes: they have lower ratings than their predecessors. House of the Dragon Season 2 was notably snubbed from the Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series .

While Game of Thrones’ trimming could be somewhat justified—writers were short on source material as creator George R.R. Martin was, and is still, yet to wrap up The Winds of Winter—House of the Dragon pushing back a major battle from Season 2 to Season 3 was needless. Showrunner Ryan Condal, in an interview with Deadline, cited narrative “rebalancing” as a major reason for this change. There’s some truth to this . Fire & Blood, the source material on which House of the Dragon is based, is not quite as long as Game of Thrones’ A Song of Ice and Fire and is less so if just the Dance of the Dragons is considered. Thus, writers had to expand it to fit into four seasons. Asides the many tweaks that George R.R. Martin warns are "larger and more toxic, there’s also every reason to believe that budget constraints share part of this blame. Given that Season 3 would feature multiple Dragon-on-Dragon and Dragon-on-army battles, all of which can only be done by CGI, House of the Dragon sequel seasons are obviously going to be expensive as they go on.

Whatever happens, the grandeur and brutality of the upcoming battles in Season 3 of House of the Dragon—which would likely begin with the impending battles in the Reach and the Riverlands and Tyland Lannister’s quest to undo Corlys Velaryon’s blockade of the Gullet with the help of the Triarchy fleet—is almost certainly on the list of things fans of the epic fantasy show don’t want to be compromised.

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