You know you have a massive hit when the streaming apps crash! The much-anticipated prequel of Game of Thrones, entitled House of the Dragon, has finally dropped, and it went crazy. So much so that the HBO and HBO Max apps crashed, according to The Washington Post. The series premiere was so big that it had almost 10 million viewers, becoming one of HBO’s biggest premieres ever, according to Tech Crunch. It gets us away talking about Ezra Miller.
The House of the Dragon premiere isn’t the biggest scoring episode in the Game of Thrones franchise. The Game of Thrones series finale had roughly 19.3 million viewers. People were left annoyed when their apps started crashing. Now, we have to also mention that we’re not sure whether the streaming numbers came from just the HBO and HBO Max apps or wame elsewhere from all the viewers around the world who don’t have access to those apps.
In Australia, House of the Dragon airs streams on Binge, which has the rights to a ton of HBO/HBO Max content. Foxtel owns Binge. Foxtel has rights to HBO programming. We assume the numbers count because why else would Binge and Foxtel air HBO content otherwise?
The Game of Thrones franchise has caused controversy over the years because of some of its content, including depictions of sexual violence, graphic violence, and its trashing of women. It even came under fire for the rape of Sansa Stark. House of the Dragon was said to have more respect for its female characters, but given the premiere where Queen Aemma dies a graphic death in childbirth, it looks like it won’t go down the sensitivity route.
Congrats, House of the Dragon
To end, we’ve written about how Prince Daemon Targaryen has been compared to a certain red-headed English prince. Yes, we wish we could make that up. Congratulations, House of the Dragon. We also need Stargirl Season 4.
