Inverse - 🍿 Reviewing 'House of the Dragon'

T.G.I.F.

August 19 2022

All men must die, but some franchises live forever.

At least, that’s what HBO is hoping with its first Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon.

Now that the unpleasant aftertaste of the GoT finale has (hopefully) dissipated, it’s time to return to Westeros for a series set 200 years earlier. House of the Dragon tells the tale of the Targaryen civil war (aka, the Dance of the Dragons), an event that author George R.R. Martin based off a 12th century conflict between England and Normandy known as “The Anarchy.”

The good news is that because Hot D (as Martin calls it) is focused on House Targaryen, there are way less names and backstories to keep up with. The bad news is that there’s a lot of Targaryen-on-Targaryen romance. (If your favorite part of Game of Thrones was Cersei and Jamie, this is the show for you.)

Read on for our review, and more, in this issue of Inverse Daily.

What's New

It's good

Television

House of the Dragon review: Something borrowed, something new

House of the Dragon, the much-anticipated prequel spinoff to Game of Thrones from series author George R.R. Martin, Hollywood screenwriter Ryan Condal, and GoT alum Miguel Sapochnik, recounts the unions forged and terminated in House Targaryen roughly 200 years before Daenerys walks through fire to emerge as the Mother of Dragons.

So how does it compare? After watching six out of the inaugural season’s ten episodes, we can assure that most Game of Thrones fans, particularly those who were diehard loyalists of their Khaleesi, will relish their time back in this ferocious medieval-fantasy world.

As for new viewers who have never heard of the Baratheons, the Martells, or the Greyjoys, House of the Dragon provides a solid stepping-stone for the eight-season tentpole show while holding its own as a separate, unique story. Both the similarities it shares with Game of Thrones and the differences that set it apart make House of the Dragon a genre prequel with a ton of potential — even if the first season feels rushed at times.

Read our review

Surprise!

Netflix

Netflix just dropped a new Sandman episode

Fans of Netflix’s Sandman adaptation were surprised Friday morning with a bonus episode only two weeks after the show’s debut.

The first half of the episode is an animated take on “A Dream of a Thousand Cats,” one of the most cherished Sandman stories. Directed and produced by Hisko Hulsing, known best for his work on Amazon Prime’s Undone, the cartoon episode incorporates a blend of classically drawn 2D animation and realistic 3D animation to create a mesmerizing and hypnotic world where felines rule men.

The episode’s second half is a live-action story directed by Louise Hooper recounting the events of “Calliope,” a ghastly story about Morpheus’ imprisoned ex-lover, the muse of eloquence and epic poetry. Hooper has previously directed two episodes of Netflix’s The Witcher.

Why are these Sandman tales important to the Netflix series? And why are they being added after the release of the first 10 core episodes? Here’s what you need to know.

Mystery solved

Ancient History

Ancient chicken bones date the destruction of a Greek city

As winter turned to spring in the year 107 BC, residents of the Greek town of Tell Iztabba were plunged into a season of destruction. The town was destroyed that year by the ancient Hasmoneans, who clashed with the Hellenistic (Greek) Seleucid empire during the second century BC.

Writing this week in the journal Antiquity, researchers from Germany and Israel detail how they used ancient chicken bones, snail shells, and fossilized plants to date the fall of Tell Iztabba.

Space

Science

Webb’s largest image yet reveals stunning new galaxies

Thanks to an international team of astronomers, the largest image yet taken by the James Webb Space Telescope was released yesterday. CEERS, the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Study, has released a massive mosaic of all the data they were able to gather in their first observations of the early universe, with what they refer to as “an unexpected, but not unwelcome, abundance of never-before-seen galaxies.”

The large team is made up of nineteen investigators and a full team of 105 scientists across 28 institutions around the world, all working together to scout out the earliest galaxies ever detected.

Take a closer look

Feature

Science

Can wastewater help us track superbugs?

Mondays are manhole days for Sean Norman. Along with a team of strong-stomached students, Norman packs his pickup truck with 12 vacuum-sized devices and other gear and heads out across the University of South Carolina campus in downtown Columbia, stopping at the manholes.

As they go, they lower their equipment into the sewers and leave it there. The next day, they haul up the collected wastewater. To preserve Norman’s lab, they hose the sewage-filled tanks down in the back of the truck.

Back at the lab, the liters of raw sewage go into juice blenders to smooth out any solids. Then, finally, the scientists can begin the hard work of discovering what dangers lurk in our waste.

This is a snapshot of Norman’s weekly routine, the culmination of a course he has steered for years as part of an effort to monitor wastewater for disease and dangerous pathogens.

The CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), created in September 2020 to monitor Covid-19, is expanding to track other disease-causing microbes. By early 2023, the network will test for the most concerning types of antibiotic resistance, influenza, norovirus, Candida auris, SARS-CoV-2, and monkeypox.

It’s a full circle moment for the CDC program, which used antibiotic resistance data from the Norman Laboratory to get off the ground when the pandemic first hit.

LUMINARIES

Special Issue

The Last of Us devs bet big on accessibility — and made a better game

A game development conference is an unlikely setting for an epiphany.

During Emilia Schatz’s 2016 panel on motor accessibility features in developer Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4, blind gamer Brandon Cole had a question about the studio’s next game, the highly anticipated sequel to 2013’s The Last of Us.

”Would you ever be able to see features for people like me?” Cole asked. “Could I ever play The Last of Us 2? I'm blind, and I would love to be able to play these games.”

Schatz and her co-design lead Matthew Gallant didn’t set out to make a triple-A action game that was playable from start to finish by a blind person. They weren’t even sure it could be done.

Meanwhile...

Understand the world through 7 images captured this week

Dolphins strapped with cameras capture never-before-seen views

'Rings of Power' Season 2 will feature a fan-favorite character

Why Marvel changed She-Hulk's origins

Today in history: American scientist Linus Pauling — the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes — died at age 93 on August 19, 1994.

Song of the day: "Mr. Sandman," The Chordettes

About this newsletter: Do you think it can be improved? Have a story idea? Send those thoughts and more to newsletter@inverse.com.

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