The past 10-15 years have seen a lot of epic fantasy sagas and franchises on TV, led by the popularity of Game of Thrones. Every studio and network has tried to capitalize on that success and launch not only rival series (like Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), but also ones that can sustain spinoffs, such as Netflix’s The Witcher. There’s no sign of this slowing down anytime soon, either, with the likes of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere coming to Apple TV via adaptations of Mistborn (as a movie) and The Stormlight Archive (a TV show).
Still, in terms of the most epic ongoing fantasy franchises, especially on the small screen, it is hard to look beyond Game of Thrones, which is the original (in terms of the modern fantasy arms race) and still the best. Even though its ending was derided, it has successfully launched two spinoffs: the lower-budget, smaller-scale A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and the dragon-filled, action-heavy House of the Dragon. The latter of those returns for its third season in June, and HBO has just dropped a new trailer to hype it up, and it looks suitably enormous and very exciting. Check out the final House of the Dragon Season 3 trailer below:
As far as fantasy TV goes, House of the Dragon Season 3 could have the most epic installments we’ve seen yet. That’s obviously an extremely high bar, considering what Game of Thrones achieved, but showrunner Ryan Condal [via EW] has teased “arguably the craziest episode of television ever made.” That specific episode will feature the Battle of the Gullet, the conflict between House Velaryon’s fleet and the Triarchy’s forces. It was originally planned for Season 2 of the show, before being moved to Season 3, with the Season 2 finale ending right on the precipice of it.
In-universe, it’s the biggest, bloodiest sea battle in Westeros history. In real-world terms, it looks like being one of the biggest battles we have ever seen on television, and an incredible feat of production, which took over the HOTD studio and required both wet and dry sets, including a giant water tank overseen by producer Kevin de la Noy, who worked on Titanic. It is also something HBO is clearly very confident in, since the footage goes heavy on teasing it: there are huge fleets and even bigger dragons involved in what looks like chaotic, jaw-dropping action sequences that at least rival the scale of Thrones and anything else on TV.
For a lot of shows, the Battle of the Gullet would be it in terms of major set pieces, but not for House of the Dragon Season 3. That looks set to open the season, but the civil war will continue to be waged long after it. Condal has promised one other “gigantic” sequence, and two-and-a-half others that, while not on the same level, are still “big-ass, chunky Game of Thrones sequences.”
The trailers have teased some of them, again with plenty of dragon involvement, along with scores of extras and some muddy, gritty combat that puts viewers right into the thick of the action. There does, of course, need to be balance with this, and there is the promise of the classic dialogue-heavy scenes and character development that made Thrones so great, so it won’t just be one battle after another, but there sure will be a lot of them.
For fantasy TV fans, it won’t get much bigger than this in 2026 and, all going right, it hopefully won’t get much better either. House of the Dragon Season 3 premieres on HBO and HBO Max on June 21st.
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