House Of The Dragon (Sky Atlantic)

Rating:

Boredom is coming! And with it, definitive proof that no amount of computer-generated castles, dragons or fleets of warships under sail can compensate for the lack of a story.

Big-budget medieval fantasy returns in House Of The Dragon, based on the barrowloads of notes compiled by novelist George R.R. Martin for the background to his Game Of Thrones series.

Running out of steam with his complex, interwoven plots, charting betrayal and power struggles in the fictional realm of Westeros, Martin began procrastinating. He scribbled hundreds of pages of faux history, drawing on accounts of the House of Plantagenet and adding mythical elements.

These were published in a zonking great hardback edition called Fire & Blood, in 2018. Another breezeblock of a book is rumoured to be on the way — we can gauge how inventive and original it will be from the rumoured working title . . . Blood & Fire.

Perhaps there’ll be a third volume called And Fire Blood.

Big-budget medieval fantasy returns in House Of The Dragon , based on the barrowloads of notes compiled by novelist George R.R. Martin (pictured: Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen)

CGI creatures and landscapes have always been mainstays of the Game Of Thrones universe, but this prequel has nothing else to offer (pictured: scene from House Of Dragon)

The television adaptation evokes all that grinding sterility of imagination. CGI creatures and landscapes have always been mainstays of the Game Of Thrones universe, but this prequel has nothing else to offer — no memorable characters, no reason to care what happens.

Even the script appears to be churned out by Artificial Intelligence — and the acting is similarly robotic.

Actors in breastplates and long white wigs recite dialogue as wooden as a cartwheel. ‘Urgent news from Dragonstone, my Liege Lord!’ Truly, ’tis tidings that will cause many a silent, searching, significant look to be exchanged ’twixt North and South of the Realm, your Royal Grace . . .

And so on, relentlessly, for an hour. Most of the first episode was spent watching the cast bemoaning events from the previous series, aired two years ago, as if anyone but a fanatic can remember what happened.

After a great deal of scowling and stifled sobbing, a dragon wing is washed up on the beach. This proves too much for Matt Smith as Prince Daemon, the man with the longest, whitest wig of all, and he vows vengeance.

Even the script appears to be churned out by Artificial Intelligence — and the acting is similarly robotic (pictured: Tomm Glynn-Carney as Aegon II Targaryen)

To achieve this, two minor characters have to be invented: a corrupt city guardsman and a ratcatcher, nicknamed Blood and Cheese. The prince hands them each a bag of gold, despatching them to sneak into the enemy palace and bring him the head of the king’s baby heir.

What could have been a grimly shocking episode is so badly mishandled it almost turns into black comedy. The assassins bicker their way around the flame-lit corridors and barge into the nursery — only to be flummoxed by the presence of two cots. The infant prince has a twin sister. Their mother, Queen Helaena, helpfully points out which one is the boy, to save the murderers the trouble of chopping two heads off.

There’s no real horror to the scene, no unbearable emotion. The Queen looks hardly more than irritated. Perhaps the actress was just in a hurry to get it over with. I know how she felt.