House of the Dragon vs A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: critics picked a winner, viewers didn't — until episode 4
The Game of Thrones prequel that critics liked most was the one a lot of fans were ready to give up on, and it took a single episode to change their minds.
HBO has two of them now. House of the Dragon is the big one: the Targaryen civil war, roughly two centuries before Game of Thrones, with dragons, armies and a cast the size of a small kingdom. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the small one. It premiered on January 18, 2026, runs six episodes and adapts George R.R. Martin's novella The Hedge Knight, set about 90 years before the main series. Peter Claffey plays Ser Duncan the Tall, a very large and very broke hedge knight, and Dexter Sol Ansell plays Egg, the bald kid who becomes his squire.
What critics said
They loved the small one. By January 31, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms had a 95% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, the best first season in the franchise:
- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, season 1: 95%
- House of the Dragon, season 1: 90%
- Game of Thrones, season 1: 90%
What viewers said
They didn't, at least not at first. The audience score for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms opened at 64%, the lowest for any first season in the franchise. House of the Dragon's first season sits at 82%, and Game of Thrones' at 96%.
The 31-point gap between critics and audiences was the widest the franchise had ever seen, wider even than the one for Game of Thrones season 8. The complaints were about pace, short episodes and tone.
It's a Game of Thrones show where the dragons are already gone and the biggest fight is at a tournament. Some viewers came for something else.
Episode 4
Then came "Seven." The episode, released early on a Friday in February to stay out of the Super Bowl's way, is built around a Trial of Seven: Dunk and six knights against seven others, with his fate riding on the result.
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It scored 9.7 on IMDb, the show's best by a distance. The first three episodes had scored 8.1, 8.3 and 9.1. For comparison:
- House of the Dragon's best — "The Red Dragon and the Gold," at 9.4.
- Game of Thrones company — "Seven" tied with fan favorites like "Blackwater" and "The Children."
The audience score started moving too, climbing to 68% by February 9. On IMDb, the show's average reached 8.7, ahead of House of the Dragon's 8.4.
Then House of the Dragon came back
House of the Dragon season 3 premiered on June 21, and the pattern repeated, just on a bigger stage. Its critics score opened at 97%, matching the best Game of Thrones seasons. The audience score opened at 69%, the lowest start in the show's history, after 86% for season 1 and 72% for season 2. Much of the anger was about how the premiere handled the death of Jace.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is coming back in 2027, with a second season based on Martin's next Dunk and Egg novella, The Sworn Sword.
Previously we wrote: Dept. Q vs Slow Horses: knockoff or equal? One season settles it