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What to Watch Between House of the Dragon Seasons
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
Checked September 9, 2026. House of the Dragon's third season ran on HBO from June 21 to August 9, 2026, eight episodes, and a fourth was ordered back in November 2025. HBO has said the story ends there. So the gap in front of you is the usual one, roughly two years, and Westeros is not going to fill it.
Here's what actually transfers. House of the Dragon is not a fantasy show that happens to have politics in it. It's a succession crisis with dragons bolted on, and the good bits are people in rooms deciding who inherits. That means the best companion viewing is mostly historical rather than fantasy, because history has been running this plot for three thousand years. Every pick below is a dynasty tearing itself apart. Three seasons and twenty six episodes of House of the Dragon exist so far, which is not much; these will hold you longer.
The court intrigue ones
Wolf Hall (BBC One, 2015, six episodes) is the best television anyone has made about proximity to a king. Mark Rylance plays Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith's son managing Henry VIII, played by Damian Lewis, through the annulment that broke England from Rome. Nothing happens loudly. Rylance mostly listens, and it is more tense than any battle sequence in Westeros. A second run, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, arrived in late 2024 with six more episodes and finishes Cromwell's story. Twelve hours total for both, which is the most efficient trade on this page.
Borgia: Faith and Fear (Canal+ and ZDF, 2011 to 2014, three seasons, thirty eight episodes) is the European Borgia series, created by Tom Fontana, and it is not Showtime's The Borgias, which ran over the same years with a different cast. Get the right one. Fontana's is grubbier, longer and far more interested in the mechanics of a papal election as a political fix. John Doman plays Rodrigo Borgia. If the small council scenes are your favorite part of House of the Dragon, this is four times as many of them.
The Serpent Queen (Starz, 2022 to 2024, two seasons, sixteen episodes) has Samantha Morton as Catherine de' Medici, married into the French court at fourteen, unable to produce an heir, and eventually outlasting everyone who wrote her off. She narrates straight to camera, which sounds gimmicky and works. It is the closest thing on this list to Alicent Hightower's actual predicament, told by someone who wins.
The Tudors (Showtime, 2007 to 2010, four seasons, thirty eight episodes) is the trashiest option and it knows it. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Henry VIII as a rock star, the history is loose, the costumes are wrong, and it is enormously entertaining. Take it as the beach read of the genre.
The Great (Hulu, 2020 to 2023, three seasons, thirty episodes) is Tony McNamara doing Catherine the Great as a comedy, with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult and an opening title card that calls it an occasionally true story. The coup plotting is real, the tone is not. Watch it if the succession politics are what you like and the grimness is what you'd drop.
The epic-scale ones
Shogun (FX on Hulu, 2024, ten episodes) is the single best recommendation here. Japan in 1600, five regents circling a dead ruler's heir, and an English pilot washed up in the middle of it with no idea what he's standing in. Hiroyuki Sanada plays Toranaga and produced it. It won the Emmy for best drama series. It gives you exactly what House of the Dragon gives you, the sense of a whole political order about to tip, at a much higher hit rate. A second season is in production.
Rome (HBO, 2005 to 2007, two seasons, twenty two episodes) is the show House of the Dragon's DNA comes from, made by the same network before Game of Thrones existed. It runs the collapse of the Republic through two soldiers at the bottom and the Julii family at the top. It was canceled early for cost, so the second season compresses years of history and moves at a strange gallop, but the first is close to flawless.
Spartacus (Starz, 2010 to 2013) is the opposite of subtle: slow motion, blood spray and unusually good dialogue about power once you adjust to the register. The first season is a genuine escalation from arena politics to open revolt. There's also a prequel run made when its lead was ill, which is worth watching in broadcast order rather than chronological.
Vikings: Valhalla (Netflix, 2022 to 2024, three seasons, twenty four episodes) picks up a century after the original Vikings, around the events of 1002 in England, and it's cleaner and better paced than its parent. Leif Erikson, Freydis and Harald Sigurdsson all want incompatible things. It's the most straightforwardly fun option here and demands the least of you.
Marco Polo (Netflix, 2014 to 2016, two seasons, twenty episodes) was Netflix's expensive pre-Witcher swing, following the Venetian in Kublai Khan's court. Reviews were poor and it was canceled at two seasons, and yet the Khan succession politics and the production design are genuinely strong. This is the one to try only after the others, and the one you may bounce off.
How to choose tonight
If you want one great thing, Shogun. If you want the small rooms and the whispering, Wolf Hall. If you want volume, Borgia has thirty eight episodes. If you want the fun without the dread, Vikings: Valhalla or The Great. Where each of these streams changes; the title page on BingeNext shows current US options.
If you'd rather have the shortlist built from what you already like, our TV recommendation tool takes a few shows and returns picks with a reason for each and where they stream.
Topics covered: house-of-the-dragon, fantasy, dynasty
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.