Something unprecedented happened at the end of the third episode of House of the Dragon, the blockbuster prequel to Game of Thrones. The show’s only pulse-quickening character, Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), singlehandedly took on hordes of enemy soldiers, dodging arrows and felling numerous foes to reach his adversary, the mysterious Crabfeeder. In a series renowned for its vast and bloody battles, it was an awkwardly shot assault course sequence, a video game you couldn’t even play. It was laughably bad.

Despite the bountiful ratings and record Emmys haul, Game of Thrones was far from perfect. It had systemic flaws early on and ended with a truncated final season that wasted television’s richest fantasy storytelling. Nonetheless, whatever occurred across the HBO hit’s 73 episodes was rarely ludicrous and never merely silly, but somehow Daemon’s suicide sprint to kill a Phantom of the Opera cosplayer easily evoked dismissive laughter. The problem wasn’t that it was unexpected, but that it felt like an unfortunate culmination.

House of the Dragon can get better. It probably will, both because of the circumstances of the text it’s adapting, and – hopefully – due to some course correction from those steering it. But because people are so grateful to have Game of Thrones back in their life, complete with the same weekly timeslot and the entire service industry of commentary and cultural ephemera surrounding it, it’s getting an easy ride. If you metaphorically tilt your head and squint your eyes, it looks like a familiar success.

You can’t easily untangle the new series from the original, and House of the Dragon certainly doesn’t try. In telling how House Targaryen, bankrupt exiles in Game of Thrones reduced to the young Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), ruled the kingdom of Westeros almost 200 years prior with imperial power and their terrifying dragons, everything is related: aristocratic families and institutions, production methods and narrative arcs. It’s made for a strangely stunted offspring.

The creators of House of the Dragon are Ryan Condal (Colony) and George R.R. Martin. The latter wrote the expansive novels that constitute the (still unfinished) A Song of Ice and Fire series, the foundation texts for Game of Thrones. Martin was exalted but sidelined by Game of Thrones, but House of the Dragon definitely bears his imprint. It’s an adaptation of a big chunk of Fire & Blood, his 2018 novel that’s written as a history of House Targaryen. It’s full of timelines, familial detail, and synopses of events. It’s an outline.

The battle for the throne between a ruling family of silver-haired dragon riders is juicy, but on the page it spans 30 years and Martin’s desire to be inclusive – to not rush the opening as Game of Thrones did its ending – means that the initial instalments are fleeting incidents years apart. Three years passed between the second and third, an awkward leap that yielded neither significant change or illuminating detail. Soon the story will leap forward 10 years and new cast members will take over some roles – there’s little here to hold on to.

The lengthy gaps undermine the show’s aims. House of the Dragon wants to view the cruelty and connivance of life atop Westeros through the lens of two initially teenage girls: Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock), the female heir to her father, King Viserys (Paddy Considine), and Lady Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), who swiftly became Viserys’ second wife after his first died in childbirth. But their friendship is barely established before they’re divided by succession: Alicent’s young son with Viserys is a preferable heir to most Westerosi nobles.