The occasional highs and explosive lows of House of the Dragon and Rings of Power

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a very long title, while every ad for House of the Dragon comes with a "Game of Thrones" franchise stamp. I've noticed, though, that casual conversation turns the Prime Video series into the generic Lord of the Rings, whereas people sometimes refer to HBO's drama just by its final word. That might be a plot reaction. Dragon's got dragons on dragons, and Rings of Power is low on rings. But the Thrones spin-off is also distinct from its predecessor: bigger, nastier, way less funny. The Middle-earth prequel apes Peter Jackson's J. R. R. Tolkien adaptations, replaying famous moodbeats from the big screen trilogy: Dramatic orb flourishes, Nazgûl-y glowskulls, a Balrog arriving millennia before his coming-out party.

Rings ended its first season on Friday. Dragon's season finale arrives this Sunday. They've been here and been huge simultaneously, with obvious contrasts. The Amazon series is Ted Lasso-vian in its dedication to ensemble niceness. People briefly don't get along before they get along. "I'm good!" declares the Stranger (Daniel Weyman). You won't hear that line on Dragon, a feel-bad entertainment about one broken family spiraling through moral warps of childbirth fatality and kid-on-kid everything. One show is much better, but a clear choice isn't a great choice. Tolkien elevator music versus nu-metal George R. R. Martin: Is this the best TV fantasy can do?

Matt Grace/Prime Video; Ollie Upton/HBO

Not by a long shot. Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal wrapped its spectacular second season as these leviathans launched. The Adult Swim series is an utmost fantasy yarn, crafting a heartfelt survival tale that's also a horizon-line friendventure through prehistoric wonder. An ultraviolent cartoon isn't for everyone. But even the family-friendly Rings amputated limbs. And anyone else bored of the live-action shows' fixation on councils and committees? "This court will reconvene at first light to make a decision!" declares Queen Regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). "Ahhh, petitions!" moans old King Viserys (Paddy Considine).

There are ways to make merry with never-neverland bureaucracy, but a lot of these debut seasons suffered from narrative delay tactics. Think of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) sailing into the ocean before swimming back, or Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) getting fired and rehired as King's Hand. Recall Disa (Sophia Nomvete) lying to Elrond (Robert Aramayo) about the whereabouts of her husband Durin (Owain Arthur), and then meeting Durin for a secret conversation in the most public place possible, where Elrond reads their lips from a mile away. Anyone remember the Crabfeeder? Meanwhile, Primal did a riverboat battle, a skyborne greatbird duel, and an emotional dino-birth in one episode.

Adult Swim Adult Swim's 'Primal'

The HBO prequel steadily improved this year, though. A midseason time jump transformed turgid Targaryen melodrama into raucous generational soap opera. Children proliferated, so you can't blame Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) for confusing Aegons. When Viserys assembles his brood for dinner, you feel decades of resentment, not to mention generalized flirt-murder energy. (This family lays and slays together.) How I love Helaena (Phia Saban) and her wonderful knack for saying the right wrong thing! Marriage, she explains, "isn't so bad. Mostly, he just ignores you. Except sometimes, when he's drunk." Saban delivers that misery haiku with majestic spliff-rolled indifference. This princess would be Andy Cohen's favorite reunion interview.

Dragon makes bizarre mistakes. Sometimes you cannot see what is happening. And Alicent's relationship with Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) didn't quite land. Martin's book Fire and Blood painted them as antagonists in a continental war. Season 1 revealed their secret teen origins, with overlooked princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) and devoted Alicent (Emily Carey) starting out as friends. The intention — sincerely (if not successfully) feminist — was to show Westeros' patriarchy pushing two strong women into opposition. Or were the male showrunners defensively over-explaining female moral ambiguity? The grown-up pair even rekindle their friendship despite actual knife scars, and Alicent is less treasonous than the notably all-male small council. Cooke is giving full Manchurian Lansbury as a doting grandmomster. D'Arcy wears battered nobility well. Still, by downplaying their vital power-play hostility, I worry this adaptation has made Alicent and Rhaenyra something worse than evil: Boring.

Toward the end of that Targaryen dinner, Jacaerys (Harry Collett) takes Auntie Helaena's hand for some royal pirouettes. That dance with dragons was just right, but the show can suffer from its more explosive instincts. The penultimate episode should climax with the ascension of unqualified slimeball Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) to the Iron Throne. Instead, it double-climaxes with the arrival of Rhaenys (Eve Best) and her firebeast Meleys. Rhaenys points her steed right at the new monarch and his entire traitorous Targaryen branch. She gives everyone what Paddington would call a hard stare… and flies away. It's a big moment without an actual incident, and not the first time this spin-off huffs old Game of Thrones fumes in its confidence that every scene needs a dragon. And I think the series underplays the horror-comedy of Targaryen intermarriage. I don't want to kink-shame — cousins were closer in the olden days! — but a family that betroths teen boys to their cousins who are also their step-sisters (because their mom married her uncle) is a family of goddamn weirdoes. Stop thinking The Crown. Start thinking The Hills Have Eyes.

Still, if Dragon had some dud twists, it never erupted a surprise volcano capable of destroying everything in its path except for literally any main character. And the hazy relationship between Dragon's queens looks Shakespearean next to Rings' portrayal of Galadriel's eternal feud with her malevolent foe.

Follow this arc through SPOILERS. The hero of Rings of Power begins her show on a thousand-year global search for Sauron. The elf commander's character arc — and most of her season 1 dialogue — focuses on that hunt for the Dark Lord. And then she runs into Sauron in the middle of the ocean. Tolkien himself barely ever described his most nefarious creation, letting the shadowgod loom beyond consciousness. But hey now, J.R.R., here's a question: What if Sauron looked like a CW vampire and acted like the brash dude who negs Katherine Heigl in a rom-com? In disguise as Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), Sauron carries a pouch with a crest on it. Galadriel discovers that crest on a random scroll and declares, wow, this guy is King of the Southlands. Later, Galadriel finds a more up-to-date scroll. Epic whoops! There is no King of the Southlands. And lo, the man she was looking for was right in front of her all along.

Any further explanation of this twist — I was waiting for you in the ocean! — will only make it worse. Too bad, because there was a fascinating revision buried in a quagmire of how-Gandalf-learned-to-love-halflings prequel goofiness. Adar (Joseph Mawle) starts off as a J.J. Abrams-type baddie, a walking question mark doing weird things for inexplicable reasons. Turns out he's a fallen elf — and an underclass activist who proclaims that orcs are people, too. "Each one has a name," he insists, "A heart." Too bad the show didn't really name any orcs, or treat them better than talking zombies. Still, next to Adar's striving, Galadriel looks monstrous. "I vow to eradicate every last one of you," she promises him. Clark gave that line psychotic gusto, clearly happy to not just be riding another damned slow-motion horse. For real, though, was Galadriel supposed to be a genocidal madwoman and a Sauron-enabling sap?

Both these series went through their own sociological spin-cycles. Dragon suffered accusations about its focus on female trauma. It received similar casting complaints as Rings from miserable racists who are the worst. That said, both shows could have done more with the Black characters they chose to sideline or kill off. And they're both downright royalist in their conviction that only high-powered, franchise-sacred aristocrats can stop apocalyptic swarming evil. The shows' ratings success ensures an industry dedicated to spin-offs, more Lords playing expensive Games. The complete run of Primal across two seasons comprises 20 to-the-bone episodes full of heart-rending thrills, mystical imagination, and lush visual exploration. Conversely, I worry the upcoming Dragon finale will end more or less identically to Rings of Power's first season, with a promise of a real war to come. Is this the future of fantasy television: Glossy nostalgia with a constant tease to cooler stuff happening next season? If so, well, I'm good.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: D+

House of the Dragon: B

Related content:

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season finale recap: Let's make some rings! 

• Sauron speaks! That Rings of Power actor opens up about the big finale reveal

• House of the Dragon star Emma D'Arcy on the viral Negroni Sbagliato meme: 'I feel so embarrassed'

• George R.R. Martin explains Daeron Targaryen's absence from House of the Dragon season 1

Check out our daily must-see picks — plus news, celeb interviews, trivia, and more — on EW's What to Watch podcast.