Even With Lukewarm Ratings, HBO Renews Luck for a Second Season

Looks like HBO will be picking up David Milch's Luck for a second season just days after the first episode premiered. The pilot opened with fairly unenthusiastic ratings, drawing in 1.1 million viewers about the same amount that tuned into the series preview last month for a combined total of 3.3 million. Both Showtime€™s Shameless, which plays in the same slot narrowly beat last night€™s turnout with 1.37 million viewers. HBO programming director, Michael Lombardo, skirted around that issue saying "We couldn€™t be more thrilled with the critical response to this beautiful piece of work." The critical response has been fairly positive, but it may not be enough to keep the show afloat. Still, I have to say kudos to HBO for taking a chance. This isn€™t the first time they€™ve renewed a show so quickly, the most recent example being Game of Thrones and that has seriously paid off. For those that did tune in to Luck two nights ago, you may have noticed that it was deliberately slow paced, in some ways mirroring the anticipation that goes along with a day at the track. Escalation was key, and they really played it up. There€™s definitely a lot of room for the show to grow, and there were a lot of characters to introduce last night. Dustin Hoffman had barely any screen time, for instance. But I€™m sure as the season continues, we will be granted slightly more familiar with the cast. I, for one, would like to see where this it goes and I€™m glad HBO is giving it a fighting chance. Tune in next week for Chris Swanson€™s review of episode 2. Let€™s see if I hedged my bets correctly.