HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has proven to be an absolute win for Game of Thrones fans, with the prequel’s Season One finale smashing series records with 9.5 million viewers within its first three days.
As reported by Variety, the finale, titled “The Morrow”, topped the previous series high of 9.2 million viewers set by Episode Five, “In the Name of the Mother”, by 2 percent. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has also managed a near-perfect trend of having viewership increase with each episode, with the exception of Episode Four, which was released early ahead of Super Bowl LX, a rare occurrence in the industry, which usually sees viewership decline after premieres.
With its season finale’s performance, the show’s first season is now averaging around 14 million viewers in the United States and 26 million viewers globally per episode, and remains HBO’s third-largest series debut behind House of the Dragon and The Last of Us.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms centres on Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey, Vikings: Valhalla), a hedge knight in Westeros, as he wanders the land and teams up with a squire named Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes). The show is based on George R. R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novels, and is set between the events of 2022’s House of the Dragon and 2011’s Game of Thrones.
The show also sees the return of the production team from House of the Dragon, including writer and executive producers Martin and Ira Parker, alongside Ryan Condal. Owen Harris (Kill Your Friends) directed the show’s first three episodes, with Sarah Adina Smith (Birds of Paradise) taking over for its latter half.
With the end of Season One, this leaves room to build hype for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ second chapter, which is set to premiere sometime in 2027 and will adapt the events of the 2003 novel The Sworn Sword.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
