GAME OF THRONES Fans React to A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS’ Short Episode Runtimes: “30 Minutes? Good Lord”
HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones universe series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is reportedly delivering six episodes that each run around 30 minutes, and longtime Game of Thrones fans aren’t exactly thrilled about that.
According to leaked reports, the entire first season will total just about three hours of screen time. That’s a massive difference from Game of Thrones, which ran 10 hour-long episodes per season, and even from House of the Dragon, which averaged eight to ten episodes close to an hour each.
Fans online didn’t hold back their disappointment. One fan wrote, “30-minute episodes for a Game of Thrones TV show? Good lord.” Another chimed in, “I miss 20-plus episode seasons of TV.”
Some are questioning the strategy behind the shorter runtime altogether. “So 3hrs total? Just make it a movie, omg,” one viewer suggested, while another called the decision “modern-day engagement farming.”
They continued, “With only 3 hours total, this could be one movie. Most people won't sub to HBO Max for one movie, but lots will for the same material dribbled out over 6 weeks.”
Personally, I don’t have a problem with it! The show looks like a lot of fun and as long as the creative team gets to properly tell the story they want to tell, and it ends up being great, that’s all that matters.
If the writing, acting, and world-building are strong, we could be in for a concise but powerful story in the Seven Kingdoms.
Set about a century before the events of Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms adapts George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas. The series stars Peter Claffey as the gallant Ser Duncan the Tall and Dexter Sol Ansell as his young squire Egg, the future Aegon V Targaryen.
Despite fan concerns, Martin has already given the show his enthusiastic stamp of approval, calling it “as faithful an adaptation as a reasonable man could hope for.”
If the writing, acting, and world-building land the way House of the Dragon did, we could be in for a concise but powerful story in the Seven Kingdoms.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on HBO and HBO Max on January 18, 2026.
