Underdeveloped side characters leading to unsatisfying dragon claiming

I want to be a ecstatic about all the new dragon riders, but the glaring problem for me this season has been how uninteresting all of the side characters are, whether due to lack of screen time or simply because they were given boring storylines. The past two episodes have highlighted this fact immensely with just how anticlimactic and unsatisfying each of the dragon claiming scenes have been. We have no reason to root for, or against these characters. We have no emotional connection to them, their plots aren’t particularly intriguing, and for the most part they haven’t been given the chance to even have intriguing storylines.

Corlys’ son had the most potential to be developed, but all we ever see is him at the shipyard talking to his brother about how they shouldn’t have to be in the shadows. Hugh also had good potential. He could’ve became the leader of the peasant uprising or anything more than just a man out of a job who lost a daughter.

The actual Dragon claiming scenes themselves have been extremely meh too if I’m being honest. They somehow lack mystique, thrill, difficulty, and stakes. I know we just had Vermithor murder dozens of people, but there’s never a point where you really think Ulf and Hugh are gonna die. I remember Aemond claiming Vhagar being so exhilarating/frustrating/satisfying, because of the fact that we knew him, his motivations, his disposition, and were able to organically come to root for or against him. There was a sense of “what could happen” since we’d seen no one, especially not a child, claim a dragon so large before. It was genuinely anxiety inducing. With these we get so little of that.