This week two of streaming’s biggest shows are back to battle it out for viewers, writes streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

The first is the long-awaited second season of House of the Dragon, a spin-off from Game of Thrones, which has raked in ratings and critical praise alike.

Premiering on Binge on June 16, this new installment in the epic fantasy series is promising even bigger spectacle than its preceding season.

The finale of House of the Dragons’s first 10 episodes featured a jaw-dropping, mid-air battle between dragons, one cinematic enough to rival anything on the big screen.

How you top that I don’t know, but I’m sure those Taragryens have something up their sleeves, alongside the daggers, of course.

For those who aren’t on this blockbuster bandwagon, House of the Dragon tracks the dynasty of the Targaryens some 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones.

While in the original show, they’re at war with other royal houses across the lands of Westeros, the prequel depicts a time when this manipulative menagerie is at war with another, fighting their own family for the chance to sit on the iron throne.

Cue the backstabbing.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about House of the Dragon has been its ability to bring Game of Thrones back to the series after many were let down by the show’s original ending.

Its premiere pulled in 10 million viewers, the biggest in HBO’s history.

It’s not quite at the 15 million average viewers the final season of Game of Thrones got, but it’s certainly on the way.

NOT so coincidentally, Amazon Prime Video has also chosen this week to drop season four of The Boys, a wickedly funny drama-comedy that’s become one of the platform’s most popular offerings.

This series tells the tale of a charismatic group of superheroes who use their powers for good while in the view of the public, but behind closed doors become quite the opposite of the do-gooders they’re worshipped as.

From super-powered drug parties to straight-up murder, these false idols have only become more diabolical as the show has progressed.

The Boys follows a group of rag-tag roughnecks who try to hunt down and expose these “heroes” for who they really are.

It’s a no-holds-barred satire that relishes mocking the contemporary superhero craze.

What’s incredibly amusing is that the viewership of The Boys has even begun to surpass that of what it aims to parody.

Season three, which came out in July 2022, managed to pull in more viewers than any of the Marvel movie offerings on Disney Plus in that same period.

It’s a sign of how quickly pop culture is shifting. The more Disney Plus dishes out, the more material this series has to take aim at.

The Boys has also celebrated huge success for its own spin-off: Gen V, which managed to maintain the show’s razor-sharp comedic edge while also exploring a whole new set of characters.

On the back of that momentum, it looks like season four could be a record-breaker. It’s bold indeed for Amazon to have pitted it against a franchise as big as Game of Thrones.

It is also no coincidence that The Boys is releasing so close to a political election in the US.

Many have thoughts about the uber-patriotic, superman-like character at the centre of the show named Homelander, who wears the stars and stripes proudly on his cape.

I’ll leave it to viewers to discern what they do.

So, a pack of treacherous, incestuous blond-haired regents who feed their enemies to dragons? Or a group of super-powered megalomaniacs hell-bent on political domination?

Oh, what cheery television it is that rates so well in this day and age.