House of the Dragon showrunner explains season 2's reduced episode count

The second season of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon is almost upon us, and we're actually getting a little bit less of the show this time around than we did back when the first season aired in 2022. That season had 10 episodes, but this new one only has eight. What gives?

Talking about this the other month, producer Sara Hess hinted that the reduction in episode count "wasn't really our choice." Now, showrunner Ryan Condal is weighing in, telling Tech Radar that there were "a host of factors" that led to the smaller second season. "It's a big, ambitious show, and it can become unwieldy in terms of the number of shoot days [you have], and certainly the the amount of resources that you have to make it," he said. "We have a phenomenal amount of resources, but those those are still finite."

"In the final analysis of it all, once season one landed and we knew where we were in the narrative, we had a clear path of view to the end and knew what the end of this particular chapter in the Targaryen history was. Looking at that, and knowing essentially how much storytelling time we needed to get there, there was a bit of a rebalancing of the narrative that was necessary to happen. This eight-episode cadence helped us to find that."

Why do we have to wait longer for fewer episodes?

So it sounds like the reduced episode count was the result of the team shaping the story the way they want it in anticipation of the eventual ending, which is getting closer now that the show has officially been renewed for season 3; and not having enough time or money to make 10 full episodes. That's an increasingly large problem in today's TV landscape, where networks lead with huge, special effects-heavy series like House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. These shows take tons of resources to make, which leads to a bitter irony: we seem to be getting fewer episodes even as the wait times between new seasons get longer. Back in the day, new seasons of Game of Thrones came out yearly like clockwork. Now, for one of these huge shows, wait times of two years are standard.

HBO is trying to make up for the potential drop in enthusiasm with an aggressive marketing campaign for House of the Dragon season 2, which is smart. But if there's a network that can find a way to deliver gripping, great-looking prestige drama on a regular schedule, that would be even smarter. Whoever figures that out, wins. In the meantime, the second season of House of the Dragon premieres this Sunday, June 16 on HBO and Max.

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