House Of The Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal is still surprised by the series' popularity—and Daemon Targaryen's
Showrunner Ryan Condal was surprised at the series' welcome, and Daemon's reputation amongst viewers
It certainly flew by, but HBO’s House Of The Dragon has been serving up new episodes for ten weeks now, wrapping up with last night’s finale, “The Black Queen.” As season one reaches a close, one of the series’ showrunners, Ryan Condal, has taken some time to reflect on the debut season.
“It’s so weird, after spending so long making the show, that the finale is airing already,” Condal tells New York Times. “It felt like it took years and years just to get that first episode aired. Then, very quickly, everything airs, and that’s it.”
Despite the overwhelming popularity of the original series Game Of Thrones, Condal says he wasn’t sure if fans would accept House Of The Dragon with open arms. But audiences tuned in, with an average of 29 million viewers for each episode in season one (compared to GOT’s 44 million viewers per episode in the final season). Not bad at all.
“I really thought it was going to be more of a hill to climb because we were following the Beatles, and how do you do that?” Condal says. “You don’t. You just try to do your own thing, and hope it connects with people. But I was shocked that people came right out the gate and accepted it, generally—this massive fandom, and tens of millions of people watching the show, and writing about it and talking about it.”