Considering how horribly disappointing the final season of Game of Thrones was, I'm shocked I actually ended up watching House of the Dragon. Since it's a finished work though and the two incompetent people to blame for the mess that was GoT's final season are not involved, I gave it a chance. I was hoping it would remove some of the bad feelings GoT's ending left me with. And it did... as long as I don't think about how 90% of what we saw on GoT had no purpose really and most things left unanswered.

Then it hit me, the pure genius of such a terrible last season of Game of Thrones... it makes everything GoT related better by comparison. Honestly, I probably would be more critical of HotD if GoT had a well-written final season.

I'm giving 6/10 because season one was definitely a good story and worth watching but not sure if it's because the bar has been set so low for GoT fans who hated the final season. I'm not willing to give them my trust for the full series just yet. If season 2 holds up, I'll update.