George R.R. Martin Says House Of The Dragon Needs Four Seasons, Discusses Show's Many Time Jumps

Author George R.R. Martin has said the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon needs to run for four seasons to tell its story properly, while he also discussed the show's many time jumps. This story contains spoilers for House of the Dragon.

Posting on his blog, Martin--who is an executive producer on House of the Dragon, observed that the number of episodes in a season of TV these days is far fewer than it used to be. When Martin was writing for the Beauty and the Beast TV show in the late '80s, they had 22 episodes per season, which was far fewer than shows that pre-dated it. With the advent of cable, the number shrank further, with Martin pointing to HBO's The Sopranos (13 episodes per season) as an example.

House of the Dragon has 10 episodes in its first season, and Martin pointed out that this is more than Amazon Studio's The Rings of Power, which has eight. Martin said he hopes House of the Dragon Season 2 will continue to have 10 episodes, because he doesn't want the show to feel rushed.

"It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish," Martin said.

Also in the blog post, Martin said if House of the Dragon had 13 episodes each season, the drama might have been able to show some of the plot elements that were skipped over in its many time jumps. At the same time, extending Season 1 to 13 episodes might have caused some fans to complain that the series was too slow, Martin said.

Speaking more about House of the Dragon's time jumps, Martin said praised series creator Ryan Condal for handling the time jumps "very well." There have been multiple time jumps in Season 1, with major characters like Rhaenyra and Alicent being recast.

"Do I wish we'd had more time to explore the relationship between Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin, the marriage of Daemon and Laena and their time in Pentos, the birth of various and sundry children (and YES, Alicent gave Viserys four children, three sons and a daughter, their youngest son Daeron is down in Oldtown, we just did not have the time to work him in this season), and everything else we had to skip? Sure," he said.

Finally, Martin commented on the latest episode of House of the Dragon, "Lord of the Tides," in which Paddy Considine's King Viserys dies. He said Viserys in the TV show is "so much more powerful and tragic and fully fleshed than my own version..." He said, jokingly, that that he is "half-tempted to go back and rip up those chapters and rewrite the whole history of his reign."

Martin went on to say that Considine deserves an Emmy for that episode alone, and if he doesn't get one, "there's no justice." Considine, meanwhile, doesn't watch House of the Dragon because it feels "debilitating" to him.

House of the Dragon's ninth episode arrives this Sunday, October 16 (watch a trailer here), with the season finale coming a week later on October 23. The show has been renewed for a second season, but HBO has yet to announce when it's coming or what to expect from it.

For more, check out GameSpot's House of the Dragon review and what other critics are saying about it. Beyond House of the Dragon, HBO is developing a Jon Snow TV series with Kit Harington and George R.R. Martin.