After spending countless hours of your life glued to the TV after becoming invested in a new series and its characters, there is nothing worse than it culminating with an anti-climatic ending.
The tension deflates and you're left to awkwardly shuffle back from the edge of your seat after realising producers really missed the mark when deciding how to wrap up the show - and that's exactly how House of the Dragon fans are feeling.
The hit fantasy drama, created as a prequel to Game of Thrones, has millions of fans who have been eagerly awaiting the highly-anticipated second series, which began airing in June.
And now, the eighth and final instalment of the season has dropped - but people weren't too impressing with it's ending.
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The episode again continued the tale of the ongoing burgeoning civil war between Team Black and Team Green, the split various factions within the ruling Targaryen family, however, viewers reckon it could have done with some more action.
People took to social media to air their complaints, with some slamming the 'drawn out and boring' plot and the lack of bloody battles in the finale, while others moaned that they don't want to wait years to find out what happens next.
One person suggested that the writer's strikes that brought Hollywood to a halt might have impacted script rewrites, although the HOTD team insisted they had 'gone through four or five drafts and numerous rounds of revisions'.
Now, co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal, 45, has spoken out amid the backlash, explaining that there is a reason why the second series of the HBO show took the route that it did.
The US screenwriter explained that creating a gripping show isn't as easy as people presume.
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"One of the challenges of making television at any scale [is] nobody has infinite time and resources," Condal said.
"When you’re as a showrunner, you’re always in the position of having to balance storytelling and the resources that you have available to tell that story.
"One of the things that came into play in season two is: What is the final destination of the series and where are we going? It was a combination of factors that led us to rebalance the season knowing now where we’re going.
"We wanted to rebalance the story in such a way that we had three great seasons of television [after season one] to round out and tell this story," he explained.
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"When you’re trying to mount the show, which requires a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armour, costumes, visual effects... we are trying to give The Gullet - which is arguably the second most anticipated action event of Fire & Blood - the time and the space that it deserves."
During the virtual press conference, Condal said that HOTD is 'building to an event which should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve we’ve pulled off'.
He continued: "We just wanted to have the time and the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans in the way it’s deserved.
"We also wanted to build some anticipation toward it. So I apologise for the wait, but … with the team that we have together, we’re going to pull off a hell of a win with The Battle of the Gullet."
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Essentially, he wants you to stay tuned for season three - which does not yet have a confirmed release date, but it is currently being written and production is expected to begin early next year.
In other news, Condal also confirmed that the popular series will come to an end after four seasons, although this isn't ironclad, as he has not chatted with HBO about its future.
"I would just anticipate the cadence of the show, from a dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from season two on," he added.
Topics: House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones, TV and Film, News, TV
Olivia Burke