THE DRAGON PRINCE wins an Emmy Award

The Dragon Prince has won the Daytime Emmy Award for Best Animated Series.

The Netflix animated show picked up the award for its third season, which aired last November. Showrunner Aaron Ehasz accepted the award on behalf of the creative team behind the series.

Netflix recently renewed The Dragon Prince for four more seasons to allow the full story of the saga to be told.

The series was always planned to be a seven-season project divided into three arcs, the first spanning the first three seasons and the latter two spanning two seasons each. With the first sequence complete and relatively working well as a stand-alone, and with Netflix infamously keen on cancelling shows after two or three seasons, fans had feared that the full story would not be told. These fears were increased by reports of a hostile working environment on the project last year by two ex-employees (claims that were contradicted by other employees), leading to fears of cancellation. However, Netflix appear satisfied by working conditions at Wonderstorm, allowing the project to continue.

THE DRAGON PRINCE renewed for four more seasons

Netflix has renewed its animated fantasy series The Dragon Prince for four more seasons, taking the show to a total of seven.

The series was always planned to be a seven-season project divided into three arcs, the first spanning the first three seasons and the latter two spanning two seasons each. With the first sequence complete and relatively working well as a stand-alone, and with Netflix infamously keen on cancelling shows after two or three seasons, fans had feared that the full story would not be told. These fears were increased by reports of a hostile working environment on the project last year by two ex-employees (claims that were contradicted by other employees), leading to fears of cancellation.

That is now clearly not the case and The Dragon Prince will return for a fourth season, subtitled "Earth" (after "Moon," "Sky" and "Sun"), as well as three more after that point. Season 4's release date is unknown.

The Dragon Prince universe is expanding, with an art book due for release next month and a tabletop roleplaying game called Tales of Xadia planned for release in 2021.

The Dragon Prince: Season 3

The Five Kingdoms are on the brink of war with the elven kingdom of Xadia, a situation expertly brought to pass by the Machiavellian Chancellor Viren. Prince Ezran has returned to Katolis to bring about peace whilst his brother Callum returns the Dragon Prince to Xadia and eases the tensions, but he finds his fellow kings and nobles in no mood to listen to him. Meanwhile, Callum and Rayla discover they have to negotiate a series of fresh dangers as they try to reach the heart of Xadia, where the Dragon Queen lies in a dangerous slumber.

The Dragon Prince is a highly imaginative, entertaining animated fantasy show from some of the same team who made Avatar: The Last Airbender. The first two seasons were solid, entertaining and fun and Season 3 continues in that vein. If you like your fantasy relatively fast-paced, but with great character development, this is the show for you.

Season 3 of The Dragon Prince mixes together of political intrigue with more traditional action-adventure storylines, building all the while to an epic conclusion. Although The Dragon Prince is not finished - it will run for seven seasons in total - it has now reached the end of its first major story arc, with two more, two-season arcs to follow. The result is a faster-paced show than previously, which has good points (especially when compared to the relatively little ground that Season 2 covered) and bad ones.

The first big negative is that the decision to have Ezran return to Katolis to claim the throne feels a bit redundant. If this had been a four-season arc, having Ezran return home for a full season would have made sense, but in this case he's barely back before he's setting out on a new adventure. It feels like just keeping him with Rayla and Callum would have worked better for pacing, and avoided a horribly contrived sequence when a massive army covers all of the ground that it took Rayla and Callum weeks to cross in just a few days (a particularly awkward bit of worldbuilding the show tries to paper over and fails).

The second negative is that Viren spends more than half the season locked up in a dungeon. It's probably not a massive spoiler to say that he leaves the dungeon and causes more mischief later on, but by delaying that moment it leaves an awful lot of story to pack into just a few short episodes, and it doesn't really work (turning Viren into a bit of a chump for his new elf friend Aaravos is also questionable). There's also the questionable decision to completely drop and ignore the suggestion from the first two seasons that King Harrow is actually still alive.

On the plus side, there's plenty of excellent character development for Soren and Amaya, who both have more to do than in the previous seasons, and our journey through Xadia results in some highly enjoyable set pieces, such as the crossing of the Midnight Desert, and a lot more building up of the backstory and lore, such as finally getting to see the confrontation between King Harrow and the Dragon King.

Season 3 of The Dragon Prince (****) overcomes some iffy pacing problems to deliver another enjoyable slice of adventure fantasy. The series is available now on Netflix.

THE DRAGON PRINCE gets Season 3 trailer and release date

Netflix's animated epic fantasy series, The Dragon Prince, arrives on 22 November. The streamer has also released a new trailer:

Season 3 of The Dragon Prince will conclude the first arc of the series; two more, each lasting two seasons, are expected to follow, for a grand total of seven seasons. There are also plans for tie-in video games, books and an animated spin-off exploring some of the deep backstory for the series.

The Dragon Prince: Season 2

The moonshadow elf assassin Rayla has formed an unlikely alliance with Ezran and Callum, the princes of Katolis. Their mission is to take the newly-hatched Dragon Prince back home to Xadia and end the brewing war between the human and elven kingdoms, facing opposition along the way. But first they have to make their way out of Katolis and find a way of crossing the river of lava that separates the nations.

The first season of The Dragon Prince was highly enjoyable but let down by technical issues, particularly the decision to drop the frame rate for certain scenes to keep the budget down. Fortunately this problem has been fixed for the second season, where the animation is stronger and more fluid. More importantly, the shows steps up a gear with its story and characters.

The series continues to mainly be a road trip, as Team Kayla makes its way to the border. They encounter new friends and allies along the way, along with old "enemies". The best thing about The Dragon Prince continues to be the character depth. The "good guys" make questionable and difficult decisions that sometimes backfire, and the "bad guys" (who don't consider themselves to be the bad guys) have their own, often credible motivations for what they are doing. Viren is certainly the show's antagonist, but he comes across as more ruthless than actually evil, and several times seems to retreat from doing things that would cause too much harm. Viren has a low-key but fascinating storyline in which he makes contact with an elf magician named Aaravos to learn more about magic, and it becomes clear that Aaravos may be a far more dangerous figure.

This season also relaxes its attention from the Callum and Rayla relationship to focus a lot more on Ezran, who now has responsibilities after the dragon hatchling "Zym" bonds with him. Ezran's journey from a young carefree boy to a more serious prince is handled quite well, in a relaxed manner. Callum has his own journey as he tries to find a way of mastering magic without a Primal Stone, something that is supposedly impossible for a human. Of the prominent Season 1 regulars, only Rayla feels a little lost in the mix, with less to do. I must also admit to some disappointment that the entertaining duo of Ellis and Ava the three-legged wolf fail to join the heroes on their quest, although they do have some prominent moments in the opening episodes.

There is also a tremendous improvement in the worldbuilding, with the other four human kingdoms named and explored (if only lightly at this stage) and more varieties of elf appearing, such as the formidable sunfire elves who can turn into powerful lava monsters.

With the technical problems solved, the world being fleshed out more and the narrative being more interesting, The Dragon Prince levels up in its second season (****) to become an even stronger series. It continues to feel like the seasons are a little too short at nine episodes apiece, but on the flipside the producers are making the episodes relatively quickly, with at least two seasons projected to come out every year. The series is available now on Netflix.

DRAGON PRINCE renewed for Season 2

Netflix have confirmed that they have renewed animated fantasy series The Dragon Prince for a second season.

The first season aired to some acclaim a few weeks ago, apart from the criticism that the season (at 9 25-minute episodes) was too short. The second season will arrive in 2019, but Netflix have not confirmed for how many episodes.

The Dragon Prince is part of a marked shift by Netflix into the epic fantasy genre. Their live-action version of The Witcher books starts shooting this month, whilst they have also greenlit a live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender with the original showrunners in charge. They have also optioned The Chronicles of Narnia for a series of films and TV mini-series.

The Dragon Prince: Season 1

The humans of the Five Kingdoms and the elves of Xadia have long existed in an uneasy peace, their lands separated by a river of lava guarded by the King of the Dragons. Now human assassins have slain the Dragon King and destroyed his last surviving egg. Elven assassins have been dispatched to slay King Harrow of Katolis in retaliation. But one of the assassins, Rayla, finds herself forming an alliance with Crown Prince Ezran and his half-brother Callum when they make a discovery that could avert war and restore peace to the continent.

The Dragon Prince is a Netflix original animated series that comes with an impressive pedigree. Written by Aaron Ehasz and directed by Giancarlo Volpe, two of the main creative forces on Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Dragon Prince is aiming for that same action-adventure vibe with a cast of colourful, complex characters and a story that both adults and children can enjoy.

In this respect the first season is a near-unqualified success. It’s funny and serious by turns, the voice acting is excellent and the characterisation is first-rate. The villains – if they can even be called that – are treated as human characters with their own foibles and strengths (and a sense of humour) and a firm belief that what they are doing is right. Even secondary characters, like the deaf General Amaya, are well-fleshed-out individuals. The show also has great music and effective worldbuilding, albeit of a slightly more traditional nature than Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.

The show does have two issues. The first is that the series employs a curious mixture of 2D animation and 3D CG graphics. The two styles don’t mesh entirely well, resulting in somewhat undetailed faces for some characters. Due to technical issues, some shots have also had to have their frame rates reduced, resulting in distractingly jerky animation. Fortunately this is only an occasional issue. At other times, particularly anything involving fast action or magic, the animation is gorgeous.

The second issue is that nine 25-minute episodes is barely enough time for the show to clear its throat. The story is only really just getting underway, there’s a startling plot twist in the finale and potential new regular characters Ellis and Ava have joined the party, and suddenly it’s all over. Hopefully Netflix renew the show and put a second season on the fast track, because this is a more-than-worthy heir to Avatar: The Last Airbender, although it is not quite on the same quality level just yet.

Season 1 of The Dragon Prince (****) is available to watch worldwide on Netflix right now.