When the New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum saw the first episodes of "Game of Thrones," back in 2011, she opted not to review the show, deciding to wait and see "if the buzz was good." It was. By the following year, when Nussbaum published her take on the series, "Game of Thrones" was a pop-culture juggernaut, attracting huge audiences and ultimately winning fifty-nine Emmys during its eight-season run. Tonight, HBO hopes to recapture that success with the première of "House of the Dragon," a much anticipated prequel—also based on a book by George R. R. Martin.
Appraising "Game of Thrones" a decade ago, Nussbaum noted the series' striking fantasy elements, eye-catching locations, and "unusually lurid" storytelling. But she also saw the show's deeper concerns as fitting within the context of its competitors, likening the series to "The Sopranos," "Mad Men," and even "Downton Abbey." "Despite the show's Maltese vistas and asymmetrical midriff tops, this was not really an exotic property," she writes. "To the contrary, 'Game of Thrones' is the latest entry in television's most esteemed category: the sophisticated cable drama about a patriarchal subculture." Four years later, Nussbaum revisited "Game of Thrones" under different circumstances, reflecting on the resonances between its fictional power politics and a harrowing real-life drama: the 2016 Presidential election.
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