I'm very much enjoying House of the Dragon season 2 so far, but haven't been able to shake the feeling that the near two-year gap between seasons has indeed hurt the show in some way. Ratings for the show are strong, but not as good as season 1 - the season 2 premiere was down around 22% compared to the season 1 premiere. Google Trends data shows it hasn't matched the same spike of interest as season 1's release. But mostly I'm talking anecdotally here: there are so many people I know who loved Game of Thrones and watched House of the Dragon season 1 when airing, but who "haven't got round" to season 2 yet, or didn't even realize it was back. I don't think it's hurt the show's quality, but it has stalled the momentum around the series. Game of Thrones worked because it came back so reliably the same time every year, and when it did have longer gaps later on, it was so big it had the same guaranteed audience waiting, a luxury HOTD does not have. And when so much of the fun comes with discussing these shows, picking the details apart, theorizing, and all that (not to mention just being able to what happened!), it does take a little bit of the joy from it. This is part and parcel of TV now, as there are very few "watercooler" TV shows (and not as many watercoolers, for that matter), but the increased production times we're seeing, with 2-3 year gaps increasingly the norm for big-budget series, doesn't really help matters at all.
