Can Any HBO Show Succeed ‘Succession’?
A version of this story first appeared on The Ankler.
Only a few months ago, HBO achieved the impossible. More than two decades into its run as the chief purveyor of Television for Grown-Ups, and having weathered the end of many of the series that build that reputation, the premium TV juggernaut outdid itself: four shows nominated in the best drama series Emmy category, with a winner — the final season of Succession — all but predetermined.
For awards watchers, this was more of the same: HBO has won the best drama series Emmy nine times this century and has held on to its perch atop Prestige TV Mountain even when upstarts like AMC, Hulu, Netflix or even Showtime attempted to knock it down.
But given all the things HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, had become infamous for over the past year — poorly judged tan suit-in-Cannes photo op, painful layoffs, the great Coyote vs. Acme tragedy — seeing David Zaslav accomplish something as fundamental as winning an Emmy was pretty remarkable.
In the Warner Bros. Discovery earnings call today, Zaslav himself boasted that “this past year, HBO had maybe its best year ever” — creatively, mind you, as the rest of the company stays laser focused on paying down that debt and nervously eyeing Furiosa’s tracking numbers. (Over at The Wakeup, my colleague Sean McNulty has the full rundown.)
There’s no big secret in predicting HBO’s continued success, according to insiders — but there’s also no guarantee it can continue forever. (Also, let’s never forget Zaslav extolling The Flash — up until it bombed.)
“It does seem, incredibly, that HBO keeps surviving,” says Felix Gillette, who co-authored last year’s book It’s Not TV with John Koblin. HBO, he points out, has been dodging extinction-level events for its entire existence — a coordinated attack from Hollywood studios, the disastrous AOL merger and an executive’s Las Vegas arrest. It might just be able to survive Zaslav’s campaign of austerity, too.
Despite the carousel of owners at the top, HBO still has a remarkable amount of institutional knowledge on its programming team — led, of course, by Casey Bloys, who in 2022 re-upped his contract, this time as CEO/content chief for HBO and Max, for another five years. Gillette emphasizes that HBO’s success has never been about a single person, but as long as Bloys and/or his trusted team are still in the building, HBO’s identity is likely to stay intact. “They all love the place—they care about the history and legacy,” says Gillette, name-checking Nancy Abraham, Amy Hodge, Francesca Orsi and Lisa Heller as well. “As long as those traditions keep going, they keep believing that it’s a viable place to keep going, then it has a shot.”
The panic that ensued when WBD shortened HBO Max to “just Max” a year ago hasn’t entirely abated, but as both Gillette and my colleague Richard Rushfield point out, it’s probably been a net benefit to HBO. With its name no longer attached to every single thing under the WBD streaming umbrella, HBO can go back to standing for itself, and the reputation for prestige and provocation it’s spent decades building.
The HBO name still means something, which is why Sex and the City can now stream on Netflix but still be a quintessential HBO show. HBO is now minding its own business as a side offering to the larger WBD effort, but as Richard put it to me, “The problem with being the side project is someone comes along and says, ‘We’re not spending billions to build the Roy family estate.’”
A Gilded Rise
The Roy family, as we all know, are no longer on the Emmy playing field (and Richard, come on, don’t you think it was the private jet rentals that really blew up the Succession production budget?) It’s entirely possible this will be an off year at the Emmys for HBO. Past winners The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Euphoria aren’t back yet; FX’s The Bear is poised to run the table in the comedy categories yet again; and Netflix’s The Crown is in pole position to take advantage of the power vacuum left by Succession in the drama series race.
But in the sheer variety of contenders it’s fielding, HBO is showing a different kind of strength.
The Gilded Age, the Downton Abbey follow-up from creator Julian Fellowes that until now has somehow captured none of that series’s awards success, is likely to see an upgrade in its second season. The well-appointed, expensive first season scored just a single Emmy nomination, for production design — to their credit, they won it!
The second season of The Gilded Age premiered last fall to what, in my unscientific opinion, was a significant uptick in buzz. Nobody quite seemed to know why they were doing it, but they tuned in each week to see Carrie Coon and Christine Baranski stare daggers at each other through opera glasses. It was stuffy and yet irresistibly dramatic. My former Vanity Fair colleague Chris Murphy, who once claimed to watch The Gilded Age with the enthusiasm others bring to March Madness, calls it “Cocomelon for queer adults”: “The Gilded Age pairs high drama with low stakes, making it engaging without being all that emotionally taxing.”
The show did score a best ensemble nomination at the SAG Awards in February, with a truly hilarious 35 actors included in the nomination. (Even The Crown, with its armies of footmen and scheming relatives, only included 15). At the Emmys it seems safe to assume The Gilded Age will crack into some other races in the drama categories, though wins may likely be a bigger challenge.
Coon, a nominee in 2017 for Fargo, is currently filming the next season of The White Lotus in Thailand — there’s that famous HBO commitment to hanging on to talent! — but is managing to fit in press opportunities anyway, and is a likely nominee in best actress in a drama series. Her co-star Morgan Spector, who plays Coon’s robber baron husband, is the show’s push in lead actor, and his Met Gala look, described by Vogue as “devastating,” sure can’t hurt his chances.
As for the rest of the cast, you can basically take your pick of Tony winners — some pundits are fond of Baranski, Cynthia Nixon and Audra McDonald, while Nathan Lane has a pretty good chance in supporting actor. Both supporting categories are likely to be crammed with talent from The Crown, The Gilded Age and The Morning Show, and it’s unclear for now who will come out on top.
But being a beloved Broadway legend can’t hurt, right?
Back to Vietnam
Over in the limited series category — where Shogun is still competing despite persistent rumors it might hop over into drama — HBO’s strongest hopes are True Detective: Night Country and The Sympathizer, which is currently airing. As Gillette points out, it’s a bit of a full-circle moment for HBO, which made an acclaimed TV adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam book A Bright Shining Lie in the late ‘90s.
The Sympathizer, co-created by South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook and Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar, has some of the most prestigious credentials of any series in the race. It boasts a breakthrough lead performance from Australian newcomer Hoa Xuande, as well as some truly balls-to-the-wall work from Robert Downey Jr, who plays four different characters across the series, each despicable and hilarious in their own way.
Fresh off an Oscar and with a Tony possibly in sight following his Broadway debut this fall, Downey is well on his way toward an EGOT. His star power— along with Sandra Oh’s, in a smaller supporting role — is likely bringing eyeballs to one of the most challenging shows in this year’s race.
Vegas, Alaska and Everywhere In-Between
Two returning favorites, Hacks and True Detective, really couldn’t have less in common beyond the sheer power of the actresses at their centers. Hacks, which delayed its third season a year while star Jean Smart recovered from a heart procedure, is back in fine form, though Smart will be challenged in winning her third lead actress Emmy now that The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri is her main competition. That does, however, create an opening for her supporting actress co-star Hannah Einbinder, and co-creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky ought to be competitive again in the writing category.
Meanwhile Jodie Foster, fresh off her own Oscar nomination, will be formidable in the lead actress category in limited series, with her co-star Kali Reis competing in supporting. (What to make of these two female-led shows forcing the less-famous lead into a supporting role? Maybe a topic for another newsletter.)
We’ll wrap it up with what might be HBO’s most consistent Emmy contender in its entire history: Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is supposedly really ending this time after 12 seasons and 24 years. It’s been nominated for best comedy series for all but its first season and shows no sign of stopping now. In addition to an all-but-assured lead actor nomination for Larry David, HBO is also pushing hard for Susie Essman and J.B. Smoove, neither of whom has ever been nominated for their Curb work. Even if voters feel tired of putting Curb on their ballots, one cannot deny that both of those actors are long overdue.
One last thing: I know that box-office chatter has moved on from the soft disappointment of The Fall Guy to the approaching army of apes, but Challengers held fairly strong in its second weekend, and the memes will live on well past its theatrical run. Only fools make Oscar predictions this time of year — guilty as charged — but I hope we can all put a pin in this one, and be prepared to remember Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, Zendaya and particularly Josh O’Connor once the rest of the competition reveals itself.
A year after Oscar honored himbo excellence in both Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling, we really shouldn’t ignore the iconic dirtbaggery of O’Connor’s Patrick.
