Do we finally like House of the Dragon?

Summary

TV Is Good Podcast Episode: "Do we finally like House of the Dragon?" Hosts: Alan Sepinwall & Kathryn VanArendonk Date: June 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Kathryn VanArendonk dive into HBO’s House of the Dragon, reflecting on its current third season and questioning whether it has finally become a show they genuinely enjoy. The pair discuss the show’s challenges, compare it to its predecessor Game of Thrones, and weigh what makes it work (and what still doesn’t). They also delve into classic TV with a look back at the infamous series finale of ABC’s Dinosaurs, pondering how finales reshape our feelings about the shows they close.

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Key Discussions & Insights

1. Personal Catch-Up & Podcast Housekeeping

• Kathryn recounts braving a packed New York during major sporting events, noting the “delight of Newark Penn Station” and participating in a Testaments panel.
  “Truly one of our nation's finest question mark hubs of transportation... with a whole contingent of nuns who were also Brazil fans.” — Kathryn [04:43]
• Alan reflects on the Knicks’ championship:
  “I’ve suffered so much in rooting for this stupid fucking team. And they did this, and they did this in the most improbable, beautiful... If someone scripted this, everyone would say, this is nonsense.” [06:44]
• Patreon plug: Next up is a retrospective on the Americans finale, encouraging listeners to avoid spoilers unless they’re not concerned with them. [11:35–13:48]

2. House of the Dragon: Past, Present, and Pain Points

a) Initial Reactions & Series Context

• Alan and Kathryn have seen the first four episodes of the third season.
  “This is going to be a more general talk about the show and about the season... but consider this a spoiler free zone for the new season.” — Alan [15:08]

b) Relationship to the Source & Game of Thrones

• Both reflect on their Game of Thrones history:
  • Alan never read the books before the show; Kathryn read the original novels but not the Fire & Blood source for House of the Dragon.
  • Both describe Game of Thrones as pioneering but ultimately disappointing, particularly in its final stretch.
  • Kathryn: “What if we took this thing that I have always been told is for children... and I made it serious by doing a lot of killing... and those themes are not going to be hope and love, and instead they are going to be that, you know, humanity is a wretched, violent, cynical, and ultimately meaningless experience.” [17:01]

c) Targaryen Fatigue & Character Confusion

• Both voice frustration with an overabundance of similarly-named, white-haired Targaryens and time-jumping recasts. “All their names are the same... they all have white hair. And they're played, especially in the first season, by actors who... keep being replaced. And so it's this really homogenized group...” — Alan [24:03]
• Kathryn finds the focus refreshing in some ways—everyone’s together, not spread across a map—but acknowledges first season fatigue with gruesome birth scenes and a slow path to genuine dragon spectacle. [25:16]

d) The Prophecy Problem

• Both agree the “Song of Ice and Fire” prophecy is a drag that detracts from the characters’ own motivations. “It is so stupid and does not need to be here at all... it is so, so much more interesting for it to be that people in power lose their minds and become these inhuman monsters. And the Iron Throne corrupts no matter who you are.” — Kathryn [29:50]
  “Every time you bring up the prophecy, you're just reminding your audience, this is irrelevant. This is stupid. It is not important.” — Alan [31:15]

e) Season 3: Are Things Getting Better?

• The hosts praise the Rhaenyra and Alicent dynamic (Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke), with Alan saying:
  “Whenever they are on the screen, I go, yes.” [33:44]
  “Darcy, their whole performance... I do kind of want to see the next episode, which is a novel experience for me.” — Kathryn [34:38]
• Alan notes the struggle to make other characters feel three-dimensional:
  “The show has done such a remarkable job in failing to make anybody but the two main characters and maybe a couple of other people three-dimensional or memorable in any way.” [35:34]
• Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen gets pointed critique, largely for being miscast and for inconsistent characterization.
  “I have struggled with this casting... when he is allowed to just be like, ‘I want more territory’... this totally tracks to me.” — Kathryn [37:36]
• The dragon spectacle is praised and criticized—impressive but often lacking character context, resulting in “CGI blobs flying at other CGI blobs.” Both found “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” more satisfying for its character focus. [40:47]

f) Adaptation and Faithfulness To Source

• Alan is firmly for adaptation over rigid faithfulness, noting that translating material for TV should involve changes.
• George R. R. Martin’s absence post-season one is noted, but neither host feels a strong shift in showrunner Ryan Condal’s authorship in S3. [44:16]

g) Popularity Despite Criticism

• House of the Dragon remains a ratings juggernaut—proving online backlash after Game of Thrones finale was not the end.
  “It is always important to remember we do not represent the vast viewing public.” — Kathryn [46:32]
• Both allow for the possibility of revisiting the show’s finale later this season, gauging listener interest.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “People mistake, like, dark for adult when they are not the same things.” — Alan [21:33]
• “I need to—I—this is... It is a—its own version of the kind of Outlander conversation, where it's like, ‘Well, there would have been a lot of rape.’ ...They were doing the same thing for House of the Dragon where it was like—but they would have had these terrible... Like, that's realistic. And yes, it is realistic. I mean, no, you're also—it's dragons. Like, it doesn't have to be real.” — Kathryn [27:21]
• “I would like more dragons, please. I would like to know more about them. I would like to care about them. They could be characters.” — Kathryn [41:00]

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Important Timestamps

• [15:21] — S3 spoiler-free intro to House of the Dragon
• [19:14] — Recapping Game of Thrones’ emotional and critical journey
• [24:03] — Targaryen overload and focus on succession drama
• [29:21] — Prophecy and its narrative pitfalls
• [33:44] — The Emma D’Arcy & Olivia Cooke dynamic
• [35:50] — Matt Smith as Daemon and casting issues
• [40:41] — Dragons, spectacle vs. character focus
• [46:32] — Ratings, popularity, and fan investment

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Segment 2: Revisiting the Dinosaurs Finale (“Changing Nature”)

Overview & Context

• Dinosaurs (1991–1994, ABC): A Jim Henson sitcom about a suburban dino family. The show’s finale, “Changing Nature,” is infamous for depicting the (literal) extinction of its characters in a bleak, environmentally-themed parable.

Discussion Highlights

a) Why Pair With House of the Dragon?

• Kathryn: Both feature “giant lizards,” serve as prequels with a known, doom-laden end, and prompt discussion on how a finale can reshape an entire show’s legacy. [52:46]

b) The Finale’s Structure & Impact

• The plot: Environmental collapse caused by corporate greed (the “WeSaySo” corporation) wipes out the dinosaurs, culminating in a chilling scene in which the baby (voiced by Kevin Clash, aka Elmo) is told there’s no hope.
• Alan: “You are telling someone who sounds like Elmo, ‘we’re all gonna die. We have killed ourselves.’” [52:19]
• Corporate satire is discussed as both dated and prescient.
  “There’s obviously no way to relate to that in 2026.” — Alan [56:11, sarcasm]
• Kathryn: The tonal whiplash is wild—the episode moves from “horny bug antics to, sorry, Elmo, we’re all about to die.” [65:58]

c) Bizarre 90s Humor & Surrealism

• The finale still leans into dumb sitcom gags (a horny bug’s advances), which now feel tone-deaf. Kathryn finds the hand-puppet newscaster “Howard Hand-Up-Me” clever; Alan marvels at the audacity.

d) Finale Darkness—How Does It Rank?

• Is it TV’s darkest? Both agree the utter bleakness and surprise make it a top contender.
  “It’s hard to imagine competing with total global extinction.” — Kathryn [65:58]

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Memorable Quotes

• “There is commitment and then there is that. Like, it’s really remarkable that ABC allowed them to do it.” — Alan [57:01]
• “Guard your future. Yes.” (re: explaining extinction to the baby) — Kathryn [57:01]
• “Love is love, Catherine. Love is love.” (on absurd bug-dino attraction) — Alan [61:55]

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Wrap-Up & What’s Next

• TV verdict: Not the greatest week for TV itself, but a great week for TV talk.
• Next week: A deep-dive on the final season of The Bear, including special guest Tatiana Maslany. [67:18]
• Find Alan at whatsalanwatching.com; Kathryn at Vulture; Patreon at patreon.com/tvisgoodpod.

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Summary Takeaways

• House of the Dragon S3 is still flawed—awash in spectacle, struggling with clear characterization and legacy baggage—but shines whenever Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke are on screen. The hosts remain mixed-to-cautiously-optimistic, finding it “good to talk about,” if not always good itself.
• Dinosaurs’ finale stands as a milestone in TV’s ability to swerve and shock, reminding viewers finales can fundamentally reshape how we remember a series, for better or weirder.
• The hosts’ tone is wry, critical, affectionate, and rich with references—making this a great guide for anyone invested in what makes for “good” (or at least memorable) television.

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For extended insights, listen to Alan & Kathryn’s TV Is Good Patreon, or stay tuned for the deep-dive into The Bear next week!

Transcript

[A]

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend

[B]

hello hello, it's Brooke Devard from Naked Beauty. Join me each week for unfiltered discussion about beauty trends, self care, journeys, wellness tips and the products we absolutely love and cannot get enough of. If you are a skincare obsessive and you spend 20 plus minutes on your skincare routine, this podcast is for you. Or if you're a newbie at the beginning of your skincare journey, you'll love the this podcast as well. Because we go so much deeper than beauty, I talk to incredible and inspiring people from across industries about their relationship with beauty. You'll also hear from skincare experts. We break down lots of myths in the beauty industry. If this sounds like your thing, search for Naked Beauty on your podcast app and listen along. I hope you'll join us. We all belong outside. We are drawn to nature. It calls to us. Whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to or the succulents that adorn our homes. Nature makes all of our lives richer, calmer and frankly, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. But the outdoors is closer than we realize with all trails. You can discover trails nearby or trails worth traveling to and explore confidently with offline maps and on trail navigation. Whether you're looking for a laid back walk with family or something more adventurous to get your heart pumping, Alltrails gives you the tools you need to get out there and find your outside. Download the free app today and make the most of your summer with AllTrails.

[A]

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Hello there, I'm James Richardson and I host the Tony Football Show. Now this summer, the biggest sporting event in the world, the Football Men's World cup, is heading to Canada, Mexico and especially the United States.

[B]

We're going to be there too.

[A]

We're going to. We are packing up and heading to Los Angeles for the duration. Which means that every day straight after

[B]

the last match has concluded, you can

[A]

catch some hot takes, instant reaction and insightful analysis from ourselves sat around the pool in la. Sounds like we're going to have a lot of fun doing it. I hope you're going to be joining us too. It's from June 10th all the way up to July 19th, the day of the final. Just search for the Tony Football show wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere acast.com. I'm Alan Sepinwall. I'm a TV critic.

[B]

I am Kathryn Van Arendonk. I am also a TV critic.

[A]

We are friends and neighbors and we love talking about TV together.

[B]

And we are going to talk about it with you.

[A]

That's right. This is the TV is Good podcast. And every week we're going to look at one current show and one classic show as we try to answer an important question, is the TV good?

[B]

This week we are going to be talking about House of the Dragon. It is an HBO series that you may have heard of already. It is a spinoff of Game of Thrones, another show you may have heard of already. And it asks the question, wait, who are all these Targaryens? Are some of them called Rhaenyra and some of them are called Rhaena? And how do we tell them apart?

[A]

And there's Rhaenys. And we'll get into that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then for reasons that I very much want to believe will make sense by the end of the segment, I have faith we will be revisiting what is inarguably or maybe arguably, but probably the darkest series finale in TV history, which was for, let me check my notes here, the family friendly ABC puppet comedy Dinosaurs.

[B]

That is. That is correct. I'm very, very excited to get into what's going on with Dinosaurs.

[A]

I feel like I've suited too much, like creative control of this podcast. You, Catherine. But maybe it will work out.

[B]

No, it's going to be great. It's going to be so good.

[A]

All right, so before we get to that housekeeping, first of all, the people need to know this. Did you make it in and out of New York City alive last Saturday when there was a World cup game and the Knicks won the championship?

[B]

Yes. I am pleased to report that because I literally sprinted out of my children's recital and onto New Jersey transit, I was able to get in and out of the city. I did get to experience the delight of Newark Penn Station, if you are familiar. Truly one of our nation's finest question mark hubs of transportation packed with like half Knicks fans and half Brazil fans and then also a whole contingent of nuns who were also Brazil fans, which was really delightful to see. And I made it into the city and made it there in time for a testaments panel which if you would like, you can watch it is on vulture.com you can go and experience me asking Chase Infinity and Lucy Halliday about the fact that they went to Medieval times not once but three times during the filming of Testaments season one. And then asking them to explain medieval times and why it was appealing to them. I think part of the answer is there's not that much to do in Toronto in the middle of the winter. And so, yeah, that is all. I'm back. I have lived to tell the tale. I am so delighted that I do not have to be anywhere near my office today as we are recording. It is the Knicks parade. And I just heard on WNYC as I was dropping my kids off for school this morning is 8:20am I don't know what time this parade starts. What time does this parade start?

[A]

The parade's gonna start around 10. And so we're still gonna be recording. Cause we're doing back to back today. So I'm DVRing the parade and will not be able to watch it before that. So please, no spoilers from people who are watching or listening to this podcast.

[B]

On Monday, I was just cheering on WNYC as I was dropping my kids off, like the top of the hour. Announcements were like, the viewing pens are full. The viewing pens are full. Do not approach the viewing pens.

[A]

So I look, this is the greatest sporting event that in my life in terms of the greatest joy. And I was in Yankee Stadium when the Yankees won the World Series in 1996. I was in Yankee Stadium when the Yankee. When Derek Jeter hit the Mr. November home run after 9 11. So this is better than those. Like, this is just. I've suffered so much in rooting for this stupid fucking team. And they did this, and they did this in the most improbable, beautiful. If the, if you, if someone scripted this, everyone would say, this is nonsense. It was everything. And so this is a joy. I also do not do crowds at all. So putting me in a quote, unquote viewing pen for hours and hours in the hope that I would get like a fleeting glimpse of Mitchell Robinson driving his custom pickup truck. No, thank you. I'm going to watch this on tv. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it.

[B]

But no, no, they're saying, like, if you exit the viewing pen, you cannot re. Enter the viewing pen. And I saw, we live in New Jersey. And I saw, I was up early this morning. I saw a troop of people walking up to the train station in Nick's gear. And it was about 6:20am and at the time I was like, that's crazy. And now I'm like, they left four hours too late.

[A]

Those of you watching on YouTube, you can see I am Weari my I'm sure off brand Knicks world championship T shirt, which I bought yesterday in a gas station on Long Island. While I was doing some business out on Long Island, I was just filling up the tank and a guy had a card table out in the parking lot of the gas station. I'm like, yes, I will do this.

[B]

That's great. If anyone can tell me how to get a Benson and Brunson T shirt, I that is the version of Nick's T shirt I could ever consider wearing.

[A]

I just did for what's Ellen watching? I did like a video mailbag. That was all Nick's questions. And one of them was, what role should Jalen Brunson play on SVU now that he and Mariska are best friends?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And the thing is, Jalen Brunson, not really the most charismatic speaker in the world, Incredible on the basketball court. So I think he's either just got to play himself or he's like a guy playing pickup basketball, like who the detectives are trying to interview, and he will not stop shooting while talking to them.

[B]

Yes. That would be a fun. A fun time. Um, I do also think it would be very funny if Mariska just showed up at some kind of formal event and they were like, who's this? And she was like, he's my date. He is my date for tonight. And we are at this. That is why we were both in formal wear and we are dancing together at this event. Why is there a crime?

[A]

Is Benson single? It's been so long since I've watched.

[B]

At this moment, I believe that she is single, I think. Think so. The part of the pleasure of the last season is that we have had mercifully little Olivia Benson private life stuff. There is professional shenanigans happening, but we have not gotten a lot of dating stuff about her lately.

[A]

But I mean, shouts to Mariska, she's doing a one woman show in the theater district.

[B]

The weird one where you have to do, like audience interaction stuff. Yeah.

[A]

So game four, which is the greatest comeback in NBA playoff, arguably the greatest game in NBA playoff history, she's doing her one woman show. She ends it a couple of minutes early so she can sprint from the theater in the theater district, 10, 15 blocks, whatever, to Madison Square Garden to get to her seats where she's sitting with Taylor Swift and the Heim sisters. Two of them, I think the third one was. Was elsewhere in the bowl. And just like, she's able to see this and wear a personalized Stevie KN I c k s T shirt. Like, that's dedication. And the celebrity Knicks fans made this just so much more fun. You got Ben Stiller filming on his iPhone these perfect cinematic videos of what's happening, you know, from the baseline. John Turturro, Timothee Chalamet and. And whichever Jenner he's with. Like, it's just very. It was fun. It's very fun and crazy and I'm sure this parade will be nuts. And as always, because we record these things in advance, anyone who cares will have already seen it and know more than I do. Right in this moment.

[B]

You get the pleasure of having seen into the future.

[A]

Yes. All right, so we got a patreon. It's at patreon.com tvisgoodpod we do a new episode the first Monday of every month. This time we did a poll for people to decide what our next subject should be and the options were the surf Dracula problem, where TV shows take their entire first season to actually get to their premise exodus, which is the ER episode with the benzene spill set visit stories from Catherine and me and the American series finale. Start what one, Katherine.

[B]

We are going to be going back to a beautiful visit to McDonald's and we are going to be talking about start the series finale of the FX show the Americans. I am really, really, really excited to have that conversation. I just rewatched that episode so that we could record the Patreon episode. What a frickin banger.

[A]

Oh my God. I just.

[B]

Yes, okay.

[A]

Question the discussion of historical place for the Patreon.

[B]

But it's question that came up. If you are ever planning to watch the Americans but have not done so, should you watch this? Should you listen to our Patreon? Should you watch this episode?

[A]

If you are the kind of person who when you get a book, you immediately turn to the last page or you just generally do not care about spoilers whatsoever, then yes, if you do intend to watch and you don't want to know stuff, do not listen to the Patreon. I know it's taking money out of our pockets, but you don't want to do it because we will be talk. It's the last episode of the show. We'll be talking about everything that happened over the run.

[B]

Yes, I got this question very specifically from a devoted consumer of all of my media, namely my father, who has never seen hi dad. Who has never seen the Americans and was like, so should I watch the finale? Like maybe this is the time I'll actually go watch this series eventually. And I was like, no, I It is worth watching this show from the beginning. Now, there are a subset of people, I am often one of them who is very, very happy to be like, maybe I'll watch that someday, but I don't really care. And then I love to consume movie podcasts about movies I've never seen. Like, you know, we watch recap, read recaps of things that I've, I'm never going to watch or maybe I think I might going to, but I don't know. And if that's you, that's totally fine. But if you have in your heart the desire to experience this TV show, please do as my father is going to do and check out all of the DVDs from your local library and watch them before or stream it on

[A]

Hulu, which is how I watch the finale again. So yes, it's there for you.

[B]

Yes. And then come back and listen to our discussion of it.

[A]

Yes, yes, again, that is at Hulu. Sorry, the episodes at Hulu. The patreon [e-mail]. yeah, TV is Goodpod. I would enjoy it if you could. If like Hulu was hosting the Patreon.

[B]

That would be, that would be. Yeah, we would have to deal with some interesting like crossover like what happens when we don't like a Hulu show. But you know, I feel like we could, we could dodge around that they're not that big of a multimedia global conglomeration. It's fine.

[A]

No, no, no, no. Although, as you were noting like yesterday, it's so strange that like you, because Hulu is now tied into Disney plus you can watch the Americans finale and the Dinosaurs finale on the same streaming service.

[B]

They should not, they should not belong together. And going within the same ecosystem from one to the other was pretty fun. Pretty, pretty fun.

[A]

Yes. All right, let us do House of the Dragon. Last night, as you're hearing this, HBO debuted the third season of House of the Dragon. It's the Game of Thrones prequel series about the civil war among the members of the Targaryen family and their many, many, many, many, many, many, many dragons. We have seen the season's first four episodes. This is going to be a more general talk about the show and about the season. We may vaguely allude to upcoming plot points and even some stuff in the premiere, but consider this a spoiler free zone for the new season. We're not going to tell you anything that would ruin your enjoyment of it if you haven't gotten to it yet. But obviously we'll be talking about things from the first Two seasons. Yes.

[B]

I opened these episodes and I hit play on the first episode and I thought, what the fuck is going on?

[A]

Yes, this is important, but we need to rewind back. So let's talk before we get to who the fuck are all these people and what are their names and why is their hair all the same? Yes. Is. What is your history? What is our history with Game of Thrones, with George R.R. martin's various books, both the Song of Ice and Fire series and all of the supplementary things? Yes, I read some fantasy. Not a ton. You just got me to read Mistborn, which is. Which is awesome. But, like, you read a lot more of it than I do. Have you read any of George's books?

[B]

Yes, I have read. I read. I think. I don't think I read the last Game of Thrones book, but I read the rest of the original Game of Thrones series books. I have not read any of the source material for House of the Dragon, which are like these other, like, collections of short stories and like, ancillary material that he has been producing instead of writing. What is the last one that he hasn't published yet? Winds of Winter or something?

[A]

When there's Winds of Winter, that's the sixth one. Yeah, he claims he's written part of that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

When I see it. I mean, I cannot imagine he will. He will ever write the seventh book,

[B]

whether or not he, Patrick Rothfuss, are just like, like writing each other letters like, hey, how's it going? Anyway, I have read. So I've read several of those books. I. I do read a lot of big, giant fantasy novels. Please send me your recommendations and your favorite ones and maybe I'll make a list at some point. I could put that on Patreon. I. This is not the flavor of epic fantasy that I tend to. I tend to like there to be a little bit more optimism and less massive slaughter in. In my epic fantasy. I. I do enjoy a Brandon Sanderson. I have not read all of Way of the Kings or whatever that one is, but I did read the first one and I was like, this would be a great time. And then I had to Tiny, tiny children. And I forgot everything about it. But. But I was very aware of all of the discourse about this series and then the TV series when it first came out, which was like, what it is a little bit a mirror of prestige era television discourse more broadly, which is like, what if we took this thing that I have always been told is for children and idiots in either fantasy books or television more generally. And I made it serious. And I made it serious by doing a lot of killing and having it be about, like, big themes. And those themes are not going to be hope and love, and instead they are going to be that, you know, humanity is a wretched, violent, cynical, and ultimately meaningless experience where we attempt to, you know, like, nature, red tooth and claw kind of stuff. And because it is so grim, I understand that this is meant for adults.

[A]

The way you're saying it so far would lead one to believe that you did not actually enjoy the television program Game of Thrones. Is that an accurate assumption or not?

[B]

I like a lot of Game of Thrones. I mean, it was really. There are moments when you have to admire the. I don't want to say audacity, because I don't actually find it that audacious, but you have to admire its ability to put these big stories together and put together these immense, terrifying set pieces and Red Wedding and to really shock people. I thought the end was incredibly disappointing.

[A]

I remember I used to, and I'll mention this now and then, I did this podcast about six years ago called Too Long. Did it watch where I, me and a celebrity, we would find a show they'd never seen before, and we'd watch the first episode and the last episode and nothing else. Allison Brie and I did that with Game of Thrones. And I remember she was so into the first episode of Game of Thrones and then we watched the last one and she was so, like, struggling to maintain that enthusiasm. And at a certain point she's like, I kind of wish I get the sense that maybe like, the next to last episode was a lot better than this. And I wish I'd seen that. And I'm not even sure that that would have satisfied her. Most of that Last season is pretty bad.

[B]

No, by next to last episode, she means next to last season. And even then, like, I was having issues at that point, but. But the last season was really. I mean, who has the greatest stories? Alan? Is it Bran? Isn't it Bran?

[A]

The greatest story is Brand the Broken.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I had never read these books. In fact, when the show debuted, HBO sent us a copy of a Game of Thrones, the first novel. And I thought, you know what? I haven't read any of these yet. Let me just watch this as a TV show and see if I can engage with it and see if I can follow it. And that's what I did. And for the most part, that worked. Although every now and then there would be just some complete dick online who was offended I had not read the books and decided to spoil them for me. So, for instance, there was a someone with a Twitter account called Joffrey die at Joffrey dies at his wedding. And he would just like, tweet at me and go, hey, what's up?

[B]

People are so good, aren't they?

[A]

Some people are good, some people are less good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I'm watching. I'm watching the show. I thought for the most part, especially in the early seasons, it was very good. Like you say, it's really grim, it's really cynical. And there is this sort of problem we've had in 21st century drama where people mistake, like, dark for adult when they are not the same things, you know? And there's parts of the show that are just oppressively grim. The stuff with Ramsay Snow and Theon Greyjoy where he's just being tortured for multiple seasons is awful. The amount of sexual assault used as key plot points, awful. Like, I'm not saying it would not be an issue in a parallel universe version of medieval times, but the show really seemed to enjoy depicting that much more than it should. So that was stunk. At the same time, there are a lot of great and rich characters in the show. Fantastic performances. It was earlier this week or last week, it was the 15th anniversary of Balor, which is the episode where Ned Stark gets his head cut off. And I did a freelance piece for that. And so I had to rewatch the episode before I interviewed the director, Alan Taylor. And I got to the end of it and I said, do I just want to rewatch Game of Thrones again? Like, knowing that parts of it are great and parts of it are not great, and it sort of loses the thread and there's a lot of tedious stretches. And then I thought about maybe doing. Have you ever read the book version of Princess Bride, Catherine?

[B]

Yes, I have.

[A]

All right, so for those who don't know, the conceit of the book is there is a real novel called the Princess Bride written by W.S. morgan Stern that William Goldman was read to as a child and loved. And then when he reads it as an adult, he discovers that, like, his father only read him the good parts. And there's so much tedium in there. And so he's going to edit it down to just the good parts. And I kind of want to just do a Game of Thrones binge that is just the good parts. You know, a lot of Tyrion and Bronn, a lot of Arya, a lot of Brienne of Tarth and Jamie, that kind of thing, and just skip lots of other parts. But I haven't done it yet. But I think there's some absolutely fantastic stuff in there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the thing that we'll get to when we're talking more about House of the Dragon is when you go back and you watch an episode like Balor, which Alan Taylor described as hilariously cheap compared to what the show could do later on, is in that first season, almost everything is like three people in a room talking because they could barely afford anything else. And by the end of the show, it was so huge, you could have ice zombies and dragons and ice zombie dragons and everything else.

[B]

And they can all be in giant battle scenes with each other.

[A]

Yes. And House of the Dragon is pretty much just that. And we'll talk about that in a second. But I did really like it. And even though those last two seasons, and especially the last season, were so disappointing and felt so much like a lot of the people making it were really over it all, I think, especially David Benioff and D.B. weiss, the showrunners, that was a bummer. I was still interested in what House of the Dragon was going to be. Then we get to House of the Dragon, and among my problems with the show is the Targaryen family. Among the least interesting aspects of Game of Thrones, I think Daenerys herself is kind of a good character who was wrecked by the end of the show. But she's fun. But she's fun in part because she is completely disconnected from the idea. Like, she's the last Targaryen as far as she knows, and so she is not bound up in all of this stuff. And then you get a show that's just about them, and all their names are the same, you know, because they're just inbreeding forever, and they just are naming their kids after one another. They all have white hair. And they're played, especially in the first season, by actors who, like the characters, keep growing up and they're keeping time jumps and they keep replacing actors. And so it's this really homogenized group that's very hard to tell apart, both in scenes and when they're talking about people who are not in the scene. And their motivations are all really similar. Like, this is a show just about who gets to sit on the Iron Throne. When Game of Thrones had so many different kinds of people with so many different goals. And so even from the start, this was bugging me. What about you?

[B]

I was. I appreciated some of the things that bothered you about this show? I liked. Parts of. What annoyed me about particularly middle seasons of Game of Thrones was when characters would be in, like, far flung areas of the map and then never interacting with each other again. And it would be like, Arya's over here and Brienne's over here, and I have no idea how far apart they are or when they will ever intersect again. And what I like about television is when my characters are, like, having interactions with each other when there are three people together in a room. And despite the time jump thing, that was a lot to get over with in. In House of the Dragon, and despite my frustration with a lot of the first season in particular, feeling like it was essentially this elaborate preamble for a bunch of battles that I kept being told would happen later, but, like, we weren't gonna get to them yet. And it's like, there's not even that many dragons in, like, the early parts of the show. I'm like, I was told I was led to believe there would be dragons, and. And so those elements of it were frustrating to me. But I really enjoy the parts of the show where it is these two women who are, you know, in this elaborate power struggle with wildly overlapping family dynamics, because that is a much more interesting way of telling these kinds of power struggle things. My other frustration, I want to say, with the first season, which, happily, the second season, and so far from what we have seen of the third season, has not been an issue, is that season one was like, I don't know if you've heard about women, but they die in childbirth all the time. And it just felt like I was being pummeled with traumatic, violent, gory childbirth scenes over and over and over again. And although that was intellectually and critically a very interesting and rich vein for me, a person who often writes about childbirth and early parenting scenes and their depiction in television, I was like, I need to. I. I don't. This is. It is a. Its own version of the kind of Outlander conversation where it's like, well, there would have been a lot of rape. So we are just depicting this thing that there would have been a lot of. They were doing the same thing for House of the Dragon where it was like. But they would have had these terrible. Like, that's realistic. And yes, it is realistic. I mean, no, you're also. It's dragons. Like, it doesn't have to be real.

[A]

Like, there would have been a lot of, like, dysentery. There would have been a lot people with horrible complexions who don't look like Sophie Turner.

[B]

There also would have been a lot of. A lot of people just sitting and reading and writing things because there was no television and no Internet. But I'm not getting a lot of scenes of people just like, scratching out notes on parchment. I'm getting a lot of scenes of violence against women's bodies.

[A]

Yes, it is. You can say a thing would have happened, but it is still a dramatic choice you're making. Like, we want to not only depict this, we want to depict this a lot.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes. So that was the thing that I found most exhausting about the first season of this show.

[A]

And I will say, like, the show is called TV is good. But we're gonna be honest with you about when things are less good. I do worry, like, we've come in a little hot on this show. And you pointed out, like, I have

[B]

some defenses of season, of the current season. So we'll get there and.

[A]

No, and the thing you pointed out earlier is the thing that I think is by far the greatest strength of the show, which is Rhaenyra and Alicent, who are the two central characters who are childhood best friends. And then things get terribly messy because Alicent marries Rhaenyra's father. And then each of them are sort of competing either should Rhaenyra be like, take the Iron Throne. Should Alicent's children take the Iron Throne?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so suddenly, best friends to enemies.

[B]

Although I will say, buried within the best thing is also the stupidest thing, which is that there is this prophecy that. That they are told about from. From the, like, ancient dude figures in their life. The father figure.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And the prophecy, they are told is that a Targaryen has to be sitting on the Iron Throne or, like, the world will end. Something like that. I can't even really remember the specific details of this.

[A]

Part of the prophecy is the plot of Game of Thrones. Yes. The Song of Ice and Fire.

[B]

Literally called the Song and Song of Ice and Fire. And it is so stupid and does not need to be here at all. And is also, like, giving them this weird external motivation for their actions. Because every time it's like, but why do you have to do this? They're like, because of the prophecy. When it is so, so much more interesting for it to be the kind of the thing that we celebrated about Game of Thrones, which is people in power lose their minds and become these inhuman monsters. And the Iron Throne corrupts no matter who you are. Right.

[A]

And also, there's a couple things with the Prophecy, which is one we know that like all the prophecy makes everything that is happening on this show irrelevant. Yeah, the Targaryens are wiped out by the time of Game of Thrones other than Daenerys. And obviously Daenerys plays a role in things, but she's not sitting on the Iron Throne at the time when the Night King is defeated and the world is saved by Arya fucking and Stark. Like, she is the one who does it. It is not a Targaryen. And so you're watching the show about like, obviously a big historical event in which the Targaryen family goes to war with, with itself and destroys itself mostly. There's still some left at the time. You get Robert's Rebellion and maybe we'll get one of those spin offs eventually. But like, none of this matters. And obviously you can make interesting drama out of something that you know doesn't matter in the future, but when you keep underlining it and you keep having Rhaenyra and Alicent and Daemon talking about the prophecy, you're just sort of reminding your audience over and over again, this is irrelevant. This is stupid. It is not important.

[B]

It's very frustrating, and it is frustrating precisely because, I mean, happily there's not like, from what we have seen so far of the current season, they're not constantly talking about this prophecy like, they're mostly just locked into the power struggles between them, which is a real relief.

[A]

And

[B]

the thing that I said at the beginning about this, like that first episode where I turned it on. It's been two years since the last season of this show, which I think is an important point. TV is increasingly struggling with the reality of these very, very long gaps in between seasons, which works for some kinds of shows and is really, really damaging for other shows where you do have these super elaborate plot points and not everyone has time to go back and, or like the desire to go back and sit down and rewatch an entire series before you then start a new season. And what you want to be able to do is like, turn on the new season and be like, oh, right, I like these people. What am I? How is this gonna work for me? And instead it was like, okay, all right, so she's blonde and she's a brunette and they hate each other. And I remember that she is they with the dragons. And then she's mad at her, but like, how various sons have killed other sons, but I can't remember who or why or frankly whose sons belong to whom.

[A]

Yes, there's. There's a big battle in the premiere, we won't talk about what happens in it in terms of who wins, who, who lives, who dies, but there's, like, a bunch of people riding dragons. And the entire time I'm like, wait, who's that? Which side are they on? Who is that? What is. You know, it's just. You have these two great central characters in Rhaenyra and Alicent, played in the present by Emma d' Arcy and Olivia Cook, played in the first half of the first season by Millie Alcock and Emily Carey. And the show has done such a great job with them, and they're really, like, rich characters. Whenever they are on the screen, I go, yes.

[B]

Yeah. And the performances are good. I think Darcy, in particular is so great.

[A]

Oh, they are incredible.

[B]

Yes. So great. Like, I like Olivia Cook quite a lot, and I think she's very good at the. Like, I'm so sad. And as the season goes on, we have seen, you know, some later episodes where there's really strong dynamic between them, but, man, Darcy, their whole. Their whole performance. And I wanted to. I mean, I don't. If it turns out lots of people like House of the Dragon and we end up having to talk about this show again this season, I think it will be worth talking about the arc of that character versus the arc of the last season of Game of Thrones, because I think they are clearly making meaningful choices about how to ground what is happening with that character inside of who we know this person is.

[A]

Whereas a lot of the stuff with Daenerys was, like, wild character swings happening in between episodes.

[B]

Yes. Yes. And that is working really, really well. And I'm glad it is an element of this where I'm like, oh, I do kind of want to see the next episode, which is a novel experience for me.

[A]

I watched the first episode of the season, the premiere, and I was really bummed out by almost all of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then I get to the second episode, and suddenly, like, there's Emma Darcy, and they are acting up a storm. And I was like, okay. Every time I think about, they pull me back in. And so the episodes two and three are a whole ton of Darcy and Cook. And then the fourth episode goes back to sort of a more ensemble piece where we're bouncing around, and suddenly there's Ulf, and I kind of vaguely know who Ulf is, whatever. And all these other people, and they're introducing a new character played by James Norton, and I'm like, okay. The show has done such a remarkable job in failing to make anybody but the Two main characters and me. Maybe a couple of other people three dimensional or memorable in any way.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Matt Smith is a part of that situation.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

If there is a third character on this show, which is, I think, Doobie. Doobie. Like, I'm not. I'm honestly not sure if beyond the first two characters, there is a third character, but if there is one, it would be Matt Smith as Daemon. I have struggled with this casting, not the character so much. I'm kind of fine with the character. I have struggled with this casting from the very beginning of this show because I look at Matt Smith and I see Doctor who and I see Prince Philip, but I do not see a Targaryen battleman. Like, every single time it rubs against me. And there is one moment. I can't remember if it's an episode three or four. There is one moment where he makes a choice to, like, propose a next step. And I was like, yeah, that's. That's who this guy is. Suddenly he makes sense to me because he becomes a whiny little bitch instead of being, like, attempting to convince me that he is, you know, some kind of badass, terrifying, like, inner fraud. Like, he. He is built. I am so sorry. That man has colonizer face. And I think it's important to understand, you know, from a casting perspective what that is and does. And when he is allowed to just be like, I want more territory like, that. This totally tracks to me. And the, like, honest, he's, like, not freaky enough for the incest plots to work either. I. It's just. So I'm hoping that as he gets whinier, it will continue to make more sense to me.

[A]

Okay, so there's a couple things here. One is, you talked about the blonde hair, and it's a big problem. We're gonna talk about the Americans, the Patreon episode. That's a show where a lot of people wore wigs.

[B]

Sure is.

[A]

And sometimes the wigs look convincing, sometimes they didn't. But you understand it because they're wearing wigs. Yeah, Everybody on the show is wearing wigs. A few of them look good. Most of them look ridiculous, do not look convincing in any way. And you would think a show with the budget that has, they could have the greatest wigs in the history of the wig trade, and they just don't. And so you have all these people who looks kind of silly on top of their genericness.

[B]

Yeah. And sometimes that's clearly a wig problem, but sometimes I continue to believe it's just a Fundamental casting problem. I do not think there is any version of Targaryen hair you could put on Matt Smith that I would buy. Yeah, I just. I don't think it is possible, you know?

[A]

Yes. So that's one thing. The other thing is, I do think a lot of it is a writing problem with Daemon. I think he just takes, like, Daenerys from episode to episode. He's a. He can be a completely different guy, and he's like a monster one week, and then he's utterly devoted to Rhaenyra the next week, and then he's sort of a fearful father, and then it's this and then it's that, and he is just sort of. It's whatever the plot needs in that given episode or that given scene, that is who Damon is. And so even though he stands out to me in a way that most of the people on the show do not, it's just sort of like I don't. I don't care about Damon because it's. There is no consistency to him.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably right. And I also think it's unfair of me to put all of my issues with that on. On the Matt Smith casting, but unfortunately, they are so inextricably linked that is. This is all I can see. Yep.

[A]

I talked before about the idea that, like, Game of Thrones early on was just relatively low budget. Obviously, they were able to create this fantasy world, but it's a lot of just like, I'm in a castle, I'm telling a story about something that happened between us 30 years ago. And then the budget got bigger and bigger and bigger. But by the time it got that big, we had established all of these characters as really, really rich. And so by the time you get, like, Daenerys on a dragon, attacking Jaime and Bronn and swooping in and trashing, you know, their. Their army, it's like, I'm invested. I care about everybody here. And I don't think that House of the Dragon has really done a great job with that. And House of the Dragon is now so spectacle focused, you've got this battle in the first episode where it's four or five dragons all attacking each other, and there's a battle at sea, and, like, multiple people are fighting on a ship that is falling apart, like, literally splitting in two as they're fighting, all of this happening. And some of it looks great and some of it just looks like CGI blobs flying at other CGI blobs. But you compare it to Game of Thrones. You even compare it to a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is the other Game of Thrones prequel series that debuted earlier this season, which is very low budget and very modest in scale and is just focused on the people. And to me, that was a much more satisfying experience than getting to see the dragons flying around.

[B]

I agree. I was assigned, and you can go read a few. I think Vulture is doing a TV newsletter about House of the Dragon. I was assigned to write an obituary for a dragon this season. And so I looked up. I was like, first of all, cannot pick out which one of these dragons is who. So I looked up some YouTube supercut of every single time this specific dragon has been on screen. And it is a total of approximately two minutes over three seasons of television. And I was like, great. I love to over read into things and will now glean an entire character out of these two minutes, but it doesn't have to be that way. I would like more dragons, please. I would like to know more about them. I would like to care about them. They could be characters. They could. I understand that they're like inhuman monsters and blah, blah, blah, blah. But I would like, they. The All Season 3 already has these elements of, like, these dragons are like the this and this other dragon is like that. And I. I think they're like, this is interesting tension to me. And I. I would like to have more. As you give me these battles, if somebody's gonna die and it's gonna be a dragon, I would like to be like, no, that was my favorite dragon.

[A]

You know, and it's funny, I was. I was texting with a friend, a friend of ours who's also a critic, who had the screeners and is like super hardcore into all of this stuff, and they're saying, oh, my God, I cared so much about Vermax. And like, wait, which. Which Targaryen is Vermax? And they say, no, that's one of the dragons.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm like. And so for some people, they are capable of having a deep investment in the individual dragons. And I imagine some of that comes also from having read the source material. It's just a lot. And one of the tensions among fans of Game of Thrones was how faithful are Benioff and Weiss being to the books? Should they be this faithful? Is the reason that the later seasons went awry because they no longer had source material. What's going on? Yeah, and I'm always. Mr. An adaptation does not have to be 100% faithful to the source material. And often it is way better if it's not, because something that works on the page does not automatically work on the screen. Something that works in a movie does not automatically work in a television show. And you have to shape the material to what the medium you're in and the people you're working with. And something that would have been good for this actor is not necessarily going to be good for Emilia Clarke. You just have to work with what you have. And there's been some question about whether Benioff and Weiss use the actual ending that Martin wanted to do or just a broad outline. And then they changed things and I don't know. Martin co created this show with Ryan Condal and at a certain point they had a big falling out. Martin is no longer involved in the show at all, has spoken quite bitterly about the experience. Without going into too much detail about what happened. He is now hands on with the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Do you feel, again, you haven't read this book either, but do you feel like, whatever. Have you felt a palpable change in the show since that first season when Martin left and it's just been Condal? And does it feel like, I guess tonally this is in the same ballpark as what the old show was trying to do?

[B]

I mean, as I noted, a refreshing lack of traumatic birth scenes. But no, I don't think, I don't. I, I am not so attuned to like, the specific textures of this that I have been like, wow, I can definitely tell that this is new authorship. I think that's part of the problem. I don't, I don't feel like the writing is coming from a specific mind that I am aware of. Exactly. Like, I can tell, you know, in Star wars you can tell when a Star wars is being made by Dave Filoni or it is being made by somebody else. And I have had a hard time. I'm not suddenly missing a particular element of this world. It's much easier to see a shift between this and Night of the Seven Kingdoms, but they are also just fundamentally different types of stories and source material. So I can't tell exactly what's signal and what's noise there.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a relatively lighthearted buddy adventure and so you would not want it to feel like this. But I really kind of enjoyed the light hearted buddy adventure a whole lot more.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, me too.

[A]

Getting back to the terrible, terrible Game of Thrones finale, at the time, the discourse was, oh, God, they've killed the franchise. They have plans for all these prequels and spin offs and they're now never going to happen because everybody's so mad. And HBO was developing multiple shows. Several of them got pretty far along and then fell apart. And this is the one we got. And then eventually we got Night of the Seven Kingdoms 2. And when House of the Dragon debuted, I'm like, are people really gonna care? Because everyone got so mad online about the Game of Thrones finale. And what we've been reminded is that people getting mad online is not really representative of the audience as a whole because the ratings on this show are a monster even compared to Game of Thrones.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So is it just like people like seeing dragons and big fights and stuff and they. They really do not care about all of the things that you and I have been complaining about for the last 30 minutes?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it is always important to remember that we do not represent the vast viewing public. Like. That is a. It is. It's true. And it's probably a good thing. And if I try to chase down why exactly some things are popular and some things are not, I. I will go as mad as Daenerys. And so it is useful to just put my own feelings over here and be like. But people do not share those feel. I mean, the most popular show on television is Jack Tracker and he tracks things. And I think.

[A]

I don't think that's what it's called.

[B]

We should talk about Jack Tracker. We should. We should for sure do some content about Jack Tracker. No, it's not. That's. I mean, his name is Track Tracker. Anyway, the.

[A]

I don't think that's correct either.

[B]

I think it is. I'm pretty sure it's Track Tracker, but I do think that the just massive dragon spectacle of it, the money is on the screen there. It is such a massive enormous. It is harder to avoid it than it is to just accept it. And so I wonder how much of it is that too.

[A]

Perhaps because it is this popular and because there are parts of it that you and I like a lot. And also because late summer TV is going to be kind of slow, it's possible that we may revisit this around the time of the finale. So if you want to hear us talk more about House of the Dragon in both the positives and the negatives, sound off in the comments. Hit us on social media, wherever we are, everywhere. We'll be listing all of that stuff towards the end of the episode.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And maybe Track Tracker too.

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[A]

Okay, let's do this.

[B]

We can do it.

[A]

First of all, for those of you who do not know, Dinosaurs was a family sitcom on ABC in the 1990s. It was created by sitcom veterans Michael Jacobs and Bob Young, Michael Jacobs, probably better known for creating Boy Meets World. It had a cast that included Jessica Walter, Sally Strothers, Kevin Clash, who played, among other characters, a baby and sounds exactly like Elmo, which we'll have to get into in a bit. Stuart Penkin, who I knew from not necessarily the news, is the sitcom dad, and it's just anthropomorphic dinosaurs played by Jim Henson created Puppets, or Henson Co. Created puppets as a family sitcom in dinosaur times, it's, you know, inverse Flintstones. What if, like, you had a dinosaur who had a job at a factory, that kind of thing. And the show was successful for quite a while. The baby dinosaur was all over merchandising, and I've seen interviews where Jacobs and Young basically said because the baby was so popular, they just kind of left us alone. It's like, make sure the baby hits the dad in the head with a pot at least once per episode. And we don't care. They come into the final. They come to the fourth season of the show. It's very clear that this will be the final season of the show. And so the creative team starts thinking and they're like, well, how do you end a show about dinosaurs? Oh, well, we know how dinosaurs ended. Let's build to that. And this brings us to Changing Nature, an episode in which we discover Everyone is waiting for the annual return of this particular kind of beetle. And the beetle is part of a delicate ecosystem in the dinosaur world where the beetles will eat these vines because without them, the vines make sort of living untenable. And the beetles do not come back, except for one, a very horny beetle who is really attracted to the dinosaur sister, played by Sally Struthers. And they try to figure out what's going on, and they discover that the swamp where the Beatles breed is now a factory from the show's sort of evil corporation. We say so. And the factory is now producing wax fruit. And as a result, a series of escalating environmental catastrophes happen until you get the Ice Age. The dinosaurs themselves create the Ice Age, and they are all going to go extinct. And there's a scene where they basically have to tell the baby that the baby and the rest of them are all gonna die. They don't use those words, but that is what it is about. You are telling someone who sounds like Elmo, we're all gonna die. We have killed ourselves.

[B]

Yeah. And the baby's like, are we gonna move? And they're like, there's nowhere to move to. And then that's, like, the end of the show.

[A]

No. Yes. Several questions for you, Katherine. First of all, why did you want to pair this with House of the Dragon?

[B]

Couple things. I was like, another dragon show. I mean, there are other dragon shows, but, like, you know, let's. Let's just lean into the kind of giant lizardness of it. That's one, two. This is just. You know, I think any. Anytime I am sitting and thinking about, like, what television would I like to be watching, I am perpetually trying to just reprogram the thing. The giant holes that exist in my TV knowledge. We all have some of them. And I have long heard about this finale, but never seen it. And so I was like, it would be fun to just have an excuse to sit down and watch this finale so that at least I now have this reference point in my head. I was a child in the 90s at the time that this thing was airing. And so I had seen the baby. I had seen all of the merchandising. I had sort of absorbed what this looked like from Osmosis, but I don't think I had ever watched. If I ever watched a full episode of this show, I do not remember it. So I also just wanted to, like, understand what Dinosaurs was. But I also think it is an appropriate show to talk about in the context of Game of Thrones. Dinosaurs is essentially its own prequel series because you know from the beginning that the dinosaurs will go extinct. They are building toward this sense of doom. I mean, not. Well, it's not like you ever know that until the finale. But it is. There is a prophecy, and the prophecy is the one that all children know about in elementary school, which is that none of these dinosaurs are still here. So I think, you know, that that's also kind of connected. Plus the idea of which I do think is more seriously a constant fascination of mine, which is like, how does the finale of a thing affect your whole experience of something? Particularly if the finale is so different from what came before. And if you liked a thing and then the finale was bad, or you did not like a thing and then the finale was good, that like, did you waste all of my time since. And it's hard to imagine a show better, sort of a more useful example than to be like, this was kind of unimpressive, uninteresting dinosaur sitcom until this thing happened.

[A]

This is the only episode of Dinosaurs I've ever seen. I was too old for the show when it was on. You know, I was in my late teens by that point, but obviously I was always aware of this. It's something. I don't remember the first time I watched it, but it was sometime when I was a TV critic like you. You sort of. You hear about this and at a certain point you say, I should see this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And you watch it and I watch it and it's like, I just can't believe the final scene, especially the build up to it is, you know, sort of wacky farce with some smart things and some really weird things. And we'll talk about the weird things, but this idea of like corporate greed and short term concern and the head of the we say so Corporation, voiced by the great Sherman Helmsley, kind of is just happy about all of this because we're making so much money selling disaster supplies and, you know, are we're up in this quarter and who cares about what's happening? And you know, there's obviously no way to relate to that in 2026.

[B]

There's none. Particularly when he's like, they're shivering in the cold because none of the, like, they have blocked out the sun and they don't have any energy anymore and they're just freezing to death. And so the dad calls the boss and he's like, what are we going to do about this? And the boss is like, what do you mean? And there's just like piles of money around him. And he's like, this is the best we've ever had it. And I did not relate to that.

[A]

No, there's nothing, like, recognizable from contemporary American life that seems like that at all. Okay. But then you get to like, the end. And it's not just that they're going extinct again. It's just there's something about explaining to Elmo, yes, Elmo, you are going to die. You are going to die very soon. Because we are all really stupid and did not care enough about the right things.

[B]

Guard your future. Yes. Yeah.

[A]

It's like there is commitment and then there is that. Like, it's really remarkable that ABC allowed them to do it. And there's a story that apparently Ted Harbert, who was the head of ABC at the time, saw the script for this, went ballistic, understandably, you know, starts speaking to the showrunners like, how dare you do. You can't do this, this is crazy. And they say to him, ted, what's the one thing that everybody knows about the dinosaurs? They went extinct. And Ted thought about it for 30 seconds and said, okay, fine. And there's. I mean, there's a lot of, like, famous TV finales that have a real fuck it vibe to it. There's one called I Marry Dora, I think. And the very last scene is characters at an airport waiting for someone to fly away. And then someone enters the scene, says, I'm sorry, it's been canceled. And they go, oh, the flight's been canceled? No, the show.

[B]

Uh huh.

[A]

And then they all turn to the audience and bow. There's things like that. There's a Rob Lowe TV show called Lion's Den where he's like, working at a law firm. And then it was canceled, but due to international contracts, they had to keep producing episodes. And so the later episodes, I think Rob Lowe is either a serial killer or a vampire or both, because again, they didn't care. Our friend Emily St James wrote this brilliant piece on the AV Club a million years ago about the Fox sitcom Till Death, where like in the last season, again, because nobody was watching, but they had the money to make them, it just became very meta and self aware. So I admire when a show just says, to hell with it, let's do this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And they really do this.

[B]

They really, really do. It's one of the strange things about it though, is that they are still making a sitcom from the 90s. So there are all of these stupid, stupid jokes. In particular the fact that the bug will not stop hitting On Sally Struthers, like, this, like, bug lands and is like, hey, where are all the chicks? And. Which kind of makes sense because the bug has come here to mate, and the mating grounds are what have been eliminated by the we say so corporation. But then he just keeps. He turns to the nearest teenage girl dinosaur and is attracted to her and then keeps being like, hey, like, what are you doing later? And it is so bizarre to watch in the context of this thing that is then about to be like, all of these people are dying. It's. It's. And he's like a gross little. Like, my antennas are coming after it. It's so. It's so strange. And she keeps trying to, like, push him away, which, you know, there was a whole. In the 90s, we all thought this was very, very funny, that you would be hit on relentlessly by someone, and you would have to keep being like, no, thank you. I don't want this. And for some reason, this was like, a laugh line every time. And so there's the strangeness of rewatching that now and thinking, like, what the fuck is wrong with this bug?

[A]

I mean, my entire understanding of, like, male female relationships was formed by Pepe Le Pew. So to me, this makes perfect sen. This seems logical.

[B]

Great. You are. You are at home here. And. But then there's also, like, the teenage daughter is the one who discovers that this whole thing is the catastrophe that is causing these cartoonish vines to keep, like, encroaching on them. And so every time you cut back, there's, like, more vines everywhere. And so she's speaking to the news channel with the anchor, whose name is Howard, hand up me, which I assume is because he's a puppet. And she's, like, laying out this whole thing about how they've destroyed the breeding grounds and how the bugs can't. And, like, we've all done this to ourselves. And meanwhile, the bug is next to her on the news. His entire species has been wiped out, and this whole planet is fucked. And he is like, hey, what are you doing later? It's. It's. It's so, like, just the yolo. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, and especially if you're gonna die soon.

[B]

I mean, honestly, if the bug. If somebody had written, like, hey, none of us are making out of this alive. Let's at least have some fun. Like. But he doesn't. He. The. It's just pure lust for this now.

[A]

I'm just. I'm just saying there's a long history in fiction of, like, end of the world. Stories in which somebody's response to it is, we're gonna die anyway. Let's enjoy ourselves before we die.

[B]

And that. That I have no problem with. My problem is also that maybe I'm a speciesist, but I don't understand why this bug is even attracted to this dinosaur at all.

[A]

Love is love, Catherine. Love is love.

[B]

I do think she wears cool sweaters. And I would wear her cool sweaters.

[A]

I can't believe I've wound up in the position having to defend the horny bug in the dinosaurs finale.

[B]

That's where we are.

[A]

I mean, I've chosen this position. This is all my fault.

[B]

It is, it is, it is. Okay, so I do also. It's so straight. It's such a strange object of writing because you have these incredibly cookie cutter, like, I'm the schlubby dad and I'm wearing the flannel shirt and I'm the nice mom, and I have no characteristics whatsoever. And I'm the sassy teen daughter and this is the, like, baby figure who just exists to be a mascot. And like, so you have all of that. That incredibly broad nothingness. Then you have this catastrophe, this depressing environmental, sort of early 90s captain. Captain Planet inflicted. Also, we've. We've decided Earth Day is the thing that we're all going to teach elementary school students, which was a lot of the sort of power. I mean, this is when I was in school. So, like, I. This is the environmentalism that I was taught as a kid. And so there's all of that stuff. And, and they are just living in the same 22 minutes. And occasionally you get these, these, like, metaphors or writing choices that are actually quite funnily dark, like complex and dark. Wax fruit being the thing that this company is producing for me is one of those choices. Because the disgust of wax fruit and why it has to exist at all is so, like. It is such a deeply uncanny, unpleasant object. And then you get the line, like, wax fruit doesn't grow on trees. Sometimes, like in bits. It's so almost smart. And, And I like Howard, hand up me. I think that's a funny joke. But that, but it's. I don't. I don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Yes. It's. It is what it is. Except when it isn't.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, there is.

[B]

I think that's right.

[A]

Yes. And I admire the fact that they tried to be what it isn't at the end.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So at the beginning of this, I said, this is inarguably the darkest Series finale of all time. And then I walked it back because, you know, we had to discuss it first. Is it.

[B]

Well, I mean, then it's like, what are our other alternatives? Like, what if you were going to put. Make a list of other options, what would be on it?

[A]

SHIELD Finale, definitely Americans finale, which we'll talk about on the Patreon, so we won't spoil here. Yeah, I don't really think of the Six Feet under finale as dark. It's more sort of everybody. Everybody dies eventually in some, you know, live long lives and all of that. What?

[B]

I mean, the finale of the Game

[A]

of Thrones finale is dark mainly because just it completely lost the plot.

[B]

Yeah. But different. The finale of the Hills, where it then owns the fact that all of this has been fake forever and that they are ruining American and international culture because reality is about to take over all of television. I think that one counts.

[A]

Okay, fair. So where would you place this on a continuum with those?

[B]

I think I kind of have to give it to this one for sheer surprise. I think the darkness part of it is how much it is a swerve from what we've been talking, like, from what this show has been in the past, whereas something like the Americans has sort of been like that the whole time.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I'm sure there are others that I will need to sit and think about. Obviously, if any of you listening have other suggestions, please let us know. But it's hard to imagine competing with total global extinction.

[A]

Very, very tough. And it's total global extinction, as you say. Just the shift from horny bug antics to, sorry, Elmo, we're all about to die. Yeah, yeah, that's that. That lands very, very hard.

[B]

It's, It's. It's bananas. It's absolutely bananas.

[A]

Catherine, was the TV good this week?

[B]

I mean, I wouldn't put it on the scale of total global extinction, nor would I put it in the level of, like, the best thing I've ever seen. I will say I think the TV was good to talk about this week.

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And we want to, as much as possible, talk about the stuff we love, but sometimes you have to dig into the things that are more complicated than that.

[B]

And the Dinosaurs finale.

[A]

Finale, I will say you did convince me by the end that this. This was made sense to do.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So thank you for that.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Next week we will be doing a whole blowout on the final season of the Bear, which drops in its entirety next Thursday or this Thursday, whatever. Timey wimey. But the entire season of the bear will be available by the time you get the next episode of the show. We'll be talking about that. There will be some, like, historical the bear over its entire life, some stuff specifically about the final season. So we hope you like that.

[B]

And we are also going to have a short segment with a guest in the form of. In the form of Canadian national treasure Tatiana Maslany, who is just going to tell us a little bit about a classic TV show that she thinks is.

[A]

Yeah, so very often the show is just going to be the two of us, but we decided from the jump that we would want to have other people in, whether they're actors, showrunners, other critics, friends, family, whatever, come on to talk about the TV that they think is good as well. So who better to start out with than Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany?

[B]

I'm so pleased to have her. All right, where can the people find us?

[A]

You can find my [e-mail] Catherine'sulture.com My Rod Serling book is available for pre order now. The links for that will be in the show notes.

[B]

And we have a Patreon at Patreon. Slash TV is GoodPod. You will obviously want to subscribe to that so that you can eventually get my list of fantasy books that I think are good maybe. And also our upcoming Americans episode, which we're really, really excited to talk about. And please remember to rate, review and subscribe because it is the only way to beat the algorithm.

[A]

Yes, we thank you very much. If you're watching or listening right now, we're really grateful to you. We want to expand. We want to bring in more. And the people who don't already know about us, the only way that they can get to them is if you help us beat the algorithm. And we hate the algorithm.

[B]

We love tv.

[A]

Yeah, we love tv.

[B]

We do. Thank you to Joe Kennedy for our theme music and for Kate Bergener for our artwork and Riley Routh for editing.

[A]

Thank you for listening. Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan. Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson. And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy. And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.

[B]

That's right. Hei, hei.

[A]

So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reaction to every single chapter and along the way. We'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong. News flash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find fantasy fan fellows wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

[B]

Do you want to know the best part about being married to a woman? That there's no man involved. I mean, true, but I was gonna say that it's a sleepover every single night with your best friend. Oh yeah, that part's cute, too. I'm Taryn. She's Cami. We're married, and staying up is our weekly pillow talk out loud with you. We're giggling, we're gossiping, we're arguing. Classic marriage stuff. Just having fun being wives while we navigate growing up and building a family together. Then our sleepover grows. Our listeners call the PP hotline with their own gossip, burning questions, late night spirals, all the stuff they'd only tell their best friends. So it's a private sleepover, but you are invited. Staying up with Taryn and Cammie. New episodes weekly follow wherever you listen.

[A]

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[B]

Com.