HBO renews 'Luck' for season 2
Milch/Mann horse racing drama continues pay cable's recent pattern of quick renewals
Director Michael Mann on the "Luck" set with star Nick Nolte.
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HBO has renewed "Luck" for a second season, only two days after the series premiere of the horse racing drama, created by David Milch, directed by Michael Mann and starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, among others. The new season will be 10 episodes — up 1 from the 9-episode debut season — and will premiere in January 2013.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled with the critical response to this beautiful piece of work,” HBO exec Michael Lombardo said in a statement, “and we are very excited about where David and Michael plan to take these incredible characters.”
The instant renewal continues a fairly reliable pattern of late for HBO dramas, where other recent series like "Treme," "Boardwalk Empire" and "Game of Thrones" all got second season orders the Tuesday after their first seasons debuted. (Though not all new HBO shows of recent vintage have gotten this treatment; "Enlightened" had to wait til the end of its season to get the good word.) As a non-advertiser-supported channel, HBO doesn't depend on ratings for its decisions (the "Luck" premiere, for what it's worth, combined to get 3.3 million viewers over multiple airings, though the 9 p.m. airing only averaged 1.1 million) and decisions are made based on quality, buzz, creator relationships, etc. HBO has done a lot of business with Milch in the past, and while "John from Cincinnati" turned out to be a mess, it seems that the working arrangement he and Mann were able to reach proved satisfactory to everyone.
I enjoyed "Luck" a lot, and am glad to see it get the quick renewal.
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All through his childhood, Alan Sepinwall's relatives told his parents, "All that boy does is watch television! How's he going to make a living doing that?" His career as a TV critic has been 15 years and counting of his attempt to answer their concerns. "What's Alan Watching" is a blog whose title is self-explanatory: Alan watches TV shows, then writes about what he watched. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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Comments
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupEddie Vedder
January 31, 2012 at 2:12PM EST Reply to CommentI like that HBO announced this so early. That way you're not worried about investing time in a series that might not be renewed.
Karyn
January 31, 2012 at 4:12PM EST Reply to CommentI'm guessing that the reason Enlightened had to wait where Game of Thrones, Treme, and Boardwalk Empire had to wait is that the last three are ludicrously expensive from the outset and they knew they'd need to amortize their layout costs over a couple of seasons even if only a dozen people watched them, where Enlightened is cheap enough that it needed to prove itself a little first.
Col Bat Guano
January 31, 2012 at 4:33PM EST Reply to CommentSo, basically it was a two year deal from the start and they just waited to announce it now so it sounded like a vote of confidence?
February 1, 2012 at 6:39AM ESTI'm not seeing the logic in that - announcing up front you'd inked a two season deal for 'Game of Thrones' would have just kicked the hype monster up another notch. Wouldn't it? My understanding is that Game of Thrones, Treme, and Boardwalk Empire all benefited from very good levels of buzz, high profile marquee names and very strong foreign sales. I'm pretty sure there are people who were looking at the premiere ratings for all three shows, and had a very clear idea what kind of numbers were the tipping point for a speedy re-up.
Bob Bobberson
January 31, 2012 at 5:18PM EST Reply to CommentAlan, I'm surprised you haven't had any comment about the sound quality issues. Are us commenters crazy, or was it insanely difficult to understand a single word that was said?
Hopefully HBO can get that figured out by Season Two, because I'm not sticking around for an English language show that I need to turn on the subtitles for.
sepinwall I've watched every episode with headphones on (my kids are light sleepers), and that tends to solve almost any audio mixing issue. There were certain lines I couldn't understand, but that tended to be more because of the syntax, or John Ortiz's accent or, on a few occasions, an actor mumbling. Mostly, though, it was all audible to me.
January 31, 2012 at 5:23PM ESTIreneinidaho I'm with Bob on this. We watched the early showing of the pilot and had a lot of trouble with the dialog. I rewatched the pilot after Sunday's showing with closed captioning on and what a relief to actually know what was being said. When more than one person is watching, headphones aren't an option. We have a nice, fairly new TV, but not some incredible home theater setup with incredible speakers. I'm already paying plenty for HBO, I shouldn't have to invest megabucks to understand what's being said.
January 31, 2012 at 7:04PM ESTTruck I mentioned this in the other post, but that is a signature style of Michael Mann. Every movie he has directed has had extremely loud sound effects and very quiet dialogue. The audio engineers are at the mercy of the producers in this regard; they would love for everybody to hear the dialogue they've carefully mixed, but the thrill of huge explosions in the theater proves too tempting for most big budget films. It sounds fine if you have a stereo that can reproduce all the frequencies, but it doesn't stand a chance on a flat screen TV with 1" speakers.
February 1, 2012 at 12:09AM ESTA possible solution: if you go into your cable box / satellite receiver's settings you might find an Audio Output Range setting that you can set to narrow (it's probably normal or wide) that will run a hard limited compressor so most audio will be the same level. On my receiver I have to hit the Settings button, then go to Device Settings, then Audio Range to find it. I set it to narrow when I'm only using the TV speakers and wide when I'm watching a movie with the stereo on.
Frank
January 31, 2012 at 5:32PM EST Reply to CommentYou just made my day, sir! I'm especially happy about this since it seems to take a while for Milch to find his groove (I really liked the first season of Deadwood, but it didn't prepare me for the excellent second and third seasons). That said, I'm really enjoying all that Luck has to offer so far, and I'm finding that re-watching episodes is a rewarding and enriching experience, and not just because I don't understand half of what's being said the first time around.
tossit
January 31, 2012 at 6:28PM EST Reply to CommentGreat news! I was worried when I saw the ratings this morning, but I guess HBO doesn't really care about that.
Great, interesting little show, that I don't understand completely yet, but I'm sure I eventually will as is with most HBO dramas
ChampSkins
January 31, 2012 at 6:47PM EST Reply to CommentSo Michael Mann is going to return for the entire second season too?
Bob
January 31, 2012 at 9:29PM EST Reply to CommentSo if rating's don't matter, the 3.3 million viewers Luck had is close to the same number Fringe gets. Can Fox sell the show to an HBO? Or is that a completely different model and scenario?
February 1, 2012 at 3:32AM ESTJennface
February 1, 2012 at 3:39AM EST Reply to CommentI'm very happy Luck will be around for a second season. I didn't want to get emotionally invested and then get the rug pulled out from underneath me again by Milch. I will never forgive him for leaving Deadwood unfinished.
As for watching Luck, I'm glad I saw the pilot twice. I am someone who spent a lot of time at various racetracks from a young age and understand what's going on. I do have to agree that the dialogue is hard hear and difficult to decipher at times.
My husband didn't enjoy it or understand the whole draw of the racetrack. I believe this will be best savored alone.
February 1, 2012 at 6:27AM ESTUnless I missed a whole lot of something, didn't HBO cancel 'Deadwood'? Yes, I'm pretty damn disappointed about the ending but discredit where it's due, don't you think?
tim_isola
February 1, 2012 at 10:20AM EST Reply to CommentGreat news and glad to see they at least upped it to 10 episodes, im getting annoyed with all these slightly shorter seasons on HBO lately. I think 12 or 13 episodes is the perfect ammount for a great drama to properly develop and evolve and peak. Very happy, ive already seen ep 2 and i think its going to be a very special show. Better than Boardwalk Empire, i get that sense already, especially since they made the bone headed move to kill off their most nuanced fascinating character.
guest
February 1, 2012 at 2:54PM EST Reply to CommentLuck seems like its going to be good.... but are we sure HBO cannot bring back deadwood?
Bob Bobberson
February 3, 2012 at 12:05PM EST Reply to CommentHow many Deadwood alums have appeared in the series so far? So far I count Jimmy Irons (one of the railbirds), Dan Dority and Jewel.
Tom
February 7, 2012 at 11:44PM EST Reply to CommentThe sound is terrible and I have all the best Mcintosh equipment and 7.1........the peruvian trainer can not be understood and has ruined the first 2 episodes. I come from a home where broken english was spoken, my moms a spanish teacher and I was born in Phx and even I can barely understand the guy...I spend the whole show translating for my wife. The audio mix is terrible and the direction so far is awful....I feel bad for Hoffman.....Michael Mann is ruining this thing with his terrible signature sound mix......
Tom
February 7, 2012 at 11:45PM EST Reply to CommentSound is so bad it is unwatchable............absolutely ridiculous and I cant believe HBO didnt catch this. The hispanic trainer is barely able to be understood......ruins the whole thing
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