House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke: "Ta, see you in 2 years"

The second season of House of the Dragon is over. We know a third season is on the way, followed by a fourth and final sometime after that. We've don't have any firm timeline, though. Writing is already happening, with filming hopefully set to begin in early 2025. That means we probably won't be watching new episodes until 2026.

That's not for sure, but that's our best guess. Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower, seems to agree with us. She took to her Instagram and posted some fun behind-the-scenes pics, including this one which she captioned with, "ta, see you in 2 years."

Two years has pretty much become the standard waiting period between new episodes of big, special effects-heavy genre dramas like House of the Dragon. The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time...they all take a year off between seasons. Some shows like Stranger Things take longer. I blame Game of Thrones; these gaps started widening during the final seasons of that show, where before seasons had come out at a rate of one per year.

When new seasons come out at this rate, shows risk of fans drifting away during the waits. But with the kind of big set pieces these series trade in, long waits are pretty much an inevitability. We may be stuck like this for the foreseeable future. If seasons 3 and 4 are written or planned close together, perhaps that will save some time.

HBO does have something ready to tide us over next year: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a new Game of Thrones spinoff set decades after House of the Dragon but decades before the original show. That one will come out sometime in 2025. Ta, see you in a year.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.