This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.
I do not enjoy how much of my brain space is wasted thinking about House of the Dragon, a series I had only moderate interest in watching and had only a moderately enjoyable time once I did last Sunday.
I watched and mostly liked Game of Thrones, but I was not a “Game of Thrones person”—you know the type, those who have accepted George R.R. Martin as their lord and personal savior and for whom Thrones is, like, a whole thing. They even can understand what’s happening.
This is all to say a prequel series seemed more exhausting than exciting, an obligation more than an indulgence.
Yet here I am, nearly a week later, still thinking about that episode. Not because it was particularly good, and not because I particularly cared about anything that happened in the plot.
It is because of the wigs.
Pray tell, how do the dragons in this series look more realistic than the hair?
This television program was not a surprise. That there would be so much attention paid was inevitable; it is the prequel series to the biggest cable TV series of the last 15 years. Why does it look like the wig budget was rustled up from the loose change between my couch cushions?
Moreover, this was always supposed to center around the ancestors to Daenerys Targaryen, who famously had bleach-white hair. It’s not like the hair department arrived on set and HBO said, “Surprise! These characters need long white locks,” and then sent some assistants to the nearest farm for bales of hay. But that is indeed what it looks like.
Any time Paddy Considine’s King Viserys or Matt Smith’s Prince Daemon are on screen, I have the urge to Instacart dry shampoo and sprinkle it over my TV. I understand that, perhaps, this hair may be true to the grotesque texture people might have actually had in the time period that I’m too lazy to Google that the series takes place in. At the same time, this is television. It is a visual medium. If I am being asked to believe that people ride on the backs of dragons, I’m also willing to play along with these poor actors having a blowout or using an electric straightener.
Between this series and Teresa Giudice’s wedding, ramen noodles are having a moment. Who is the Lauren or Ashley doing their PR, because everyone in Hollywood should be hiring her. I’ve never craved microwaveable gluten more in my life. I don’t know what the wigs in House of the Dragon are made of, but if they were packaged in a dehydrated brick and needed to be boiled before being placed on these people’s heads, I would not be surprised.
I just am so baffled by choices that were clearly intentional. They saw Eve Best as Princess Rhaenys looking like a woman that just walked into a spiderweb and spun and flailed for a bit, but decided in the end to let the new cocoon of spider thread just stay on the top of her head, and they thought, “This is fine. We can allow this on TV.” They were asked what vibe they were thinking for Lord Corlys’ hairdo and replied, “Absolutely Forest Whitaker in Battlefield Earth, thank you.”
It is unclear why Nicole Kidman’s history of wigs and the ones from The Good Wife were put on the House of the Dragon vision board, but I will give credit for making a bold choice.
Perhaps this was a conspiracy to get cranky people like me to actually learn the names of these new characters and how they’re spelled. (Not to brag, but there was a time when I was off-book on Daenerys Targaryen.) But I can now confidently tell my coworker words like “Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen” instead of “the one who’s the daughter of the guy who has the evil but maybe sort-of hot brother.” Success?
There was a really fun and illuminating piece recently that was written by Chika Ekemezie for Vox, getting to the root of a problem that has always perplexed me: “Why do wigs on TV look so awful?”
It’s so bizarre to me. These are shows that are paying actors over a million dollars per episode. Production and marketing budgets amount to the GDP of a small country. I know people who wear wigs and look absolutely stunning. It has made no sense to me that the biggest celebrities in the world are on TV for all of us to see looking like someone went to Michael’s, bought some yarn, and then glued it on their heads. This is the Golden Era of TV, people! Show some respect!
According to Ekemezie’s story, one reason is that these wigs aren’t meant to last. Which is understandable! And why the lighting and photography departments should be more collaborative in, um, disguising these imperfections.
Good wigs are also, apparently, expensive. Makes sense! “If all you have for a wig budget is $10,000, that’s one wig,” one of her sources says. “Those are decisions people have to make. If you’re doing bigger movies, your budget is $100,000; it gives you leeway, and you can buy better wigs and get better looks.”
That can truly be a huge burden on many productions. But also I am talking about a TV series that can afford to MAKE DRAGONS. Gimme a good wig!
In any case, I apologize in advance for the high-pitched shrieks you will hear every Sunday from 9 to 10 p.m. ET each week as I viscerally react to the hair assaulting my eyes as House of the Dragon airs. Disappointment is coming.
