A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (AKotSK), a spin-off of the popular HBO fantasy show Game of Thrones, has just finished airing its first season to critical and financial acclaim. The show has achieved extraordinarily high ratings and become one of HBO’s most streamed shows. The showrunner wants to keep the hype going and has no plans to end the series for years to come. However, success isn’t always lightly given, and fans of other acclaimed shows have attempted to take down AKotSK’s ratings.
Dunk and Egg
AKotSK season one is based on the novella “The Hedge Knight”, by George R. R. Martin. “The Hedge Knight” is a prequel to the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series by Martin, which served as the source material for Game of Thrones. AKotSK is the second prequel series HBO has adapted, with House of the Dragon recently releasing a teaser for its third season.
Set 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones, AKotSK follows Ser Duncan (Dunk) the Tall, a knight of no renown, as he meets a young boy with a secret, Egg, whom he takes on as his squire. The unlikely pair must navigate a world of high lords and famed warriors, facing challenges that test their trust in each other and their honor. AKotSK has managed to draw fans back into Westeros, the world of Game of Thrones, after a famously disappointing series finale back in 2019.
Season 1 Reception
AKotSK has recently finished airing all six episodes of its first season. Many fans were upset by the number of episodes, as well as the length of each episode, which only ran for about 30 minutes. The short runtime of the season is largely due to the fact that the source material is much shorter than the material Game of Thrones had. Each novella in “The Hedge Knight” is only about 100 pages, whereas each book in “A Song of Ice and Fire” is around 1,000 pages.
Despite the complaints fans had, AKotSK still managed to draw an average of 13 million viewers per episode, making it one of the most streamed HBO shows so far in 2026. AKotSK also received extraordinarily high ratings from fans and critics, reaching a 93 on Rotten Tomatoes, and averaging an 8.92 on IMDB.
How Many Seasons Will AKotSK Have?
With such a successful first season, AKotSK likely isn’t going anywhere for quite a while. If showrunner Ira Parker has his way, it might last a lifetime. Parker has stated that he wants the show to follow Dunk and Egg throughout their entire lives, and he wants to keep the same two actors to portray them. Parker plans four to five seasons with Egg as a child, then intends to return after 10 years for another four to five seasons with Egg as a teenager, and after 10 more years, a final four to five seasons with Egg as an adult, totaling 15 seasons and nearly 45 years.
Parker is almost certain no one will let his plan go through, but after episode five reached a perfect 10 rating, AKotSK may be here to stay. This, however, has angered fans of other popular shows such as Breaking Bad. Episode five’s perfect rating upset Breaking Bad fans, as it threatened Breaking Bad’s “Ozymandias” for the top spot on IMDB, where it has resided for 13 years.
IMDB Feud
Fans of Breaking Bad took to IMDB to review bomb episode five of AKotSK, leaving a staggering amount of one-star reviews with captions such as “REVENGE FOR OZYMANDIAS.” The episode’s rating has dropped from 10 to 9.5, making it the second-highest-rated episode of the season despite receiving the most acclaim. In turn, fans of AKotSK fired back and left a number of one-star reviews under season five, episode fourteen of Breaking Bad, also dropping it from 10 to 9.5, dethroning it from the top spot on IMDB where it has been since its 2013 release.
Despite feuds between fandoms impacting the ratings of AKotSK, the show proved itself to be a great success for HBO, showing that fans are still invested in the world of Westeros almost 10 years after being let down by the ending of Game of Thrones. Season 2 of AKotSK has already begun filming and will likely return in 2027. Until then, fans can expect season 3 of House of the Dragon to air this June on HBO.
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