Everyone knows what it’s like to see their favorite show get milked to the bone. We see it through the “Gilmore Girls” sequels, the hundreds of one-season “Star Wars” shows and whichever projects Marvel has decided to dump out after “Endgame,” “WandaVision” excluded.
HBO is no different than its counterparts at Netflix and Disney. In 2022 they prepared their milk pails for the arrival of “House of the Dragon,” which inevitably flopped due to the show runners, and in 2025 they’ve created a new farm entirely for the $2.2 billion cow that is “Game of Thrones,” with the newest addition being “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The show is based off the novella “Tales of Dunk and Egg” and will be a six-episode series airing every Sunday until Feb. 22, with season two currently being filmed.
What makes “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” fundamentally different from almost every other show that is going to air this year is that it’s a faithful adaptation of a light-hearted story that places emphasis on common people more relatable than the princesses and superheroes that will be released in the coming months.
With a year filled with intense drama planned out for the world’s entertainment, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” provides a necessary palate cleanser. A simple knight, his young but intelligent squire, traveling through a medieval world where dragons and magic lay dormant.
As social media usage increases, show runners and writers have to adapt to the poor attention spans of audiences. “Stranger Things” had at least five conversations between the characters in each episode, summarizing what was occurring in the show, but the beauty in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is that it doesn’t rely on the viewers. Unlike massive shows like “Stranger Things,” which have to pander to the largest audience they can, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is uniquely made for fans who care. Sure, casuals will be able to enjoy the show, but the elements that drive the plot are subtle.
Simplicity is truly beautiful. The charming English countryside captured in 30-minute episodes, combined with lovable characters that tug at the viewer’s heartstrings, is better than any world-ending five-hour episode. The main characters of Dunk and Egg are the wholesome yet silly characters that America needs.
Ultimately, it’s the subtlety that’s lost with the production of multi-billion-dollar franchises. What adds so much to the whimsical, medieval charm of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is that the most important conversations occur in body language and settings, as opposed to verbal expression.
As a result, the viewer is forced to pay attention to what is occurring on screen, the show is basically telling you that if you don’t have the attention span to watch a slow-paced show, then don’t watch it.
With the next few months of entertainment looking like high-stakes superhero wars and intense hospital dramas, a slow paced show about his knight and his squire is all audiences really need.
