Showtime Bringing Back Highly-Rated Limited Series for a Second Season

Showtime is extending one of its hit limited series into an ongoing drama series. The Bryan Cranston-starring drama Your Honor has been renewed for Season 2, Showtime announced Tuesday during its portion of the TCA summer virtual press tour. Based on the Israeli series Kvodocreated by Ron Ninio and Shlomo Mashiach, Your Honor stars Bryan Cranston as Michael Desiato, a New Orleans judge who is forced to confront his deepest convictions when his teenage son is involved in a hit-and-run that embroils an organized crime family. Set to run 10 episodes, Season 2 will begin filming next year for a 2022 debut, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The decision to renew Your Honor comes after the show was originally billed as a limited series. Picked up to series in October 2017, the drama’s first season premiered in December 2020. It ran for 10 episodes before concluding in February of this year. The series was met with mixed reviews from critics and currently has just a 50% Tomatometer rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though it proved to be a ratings powerhouse for the network.

When Your Honor debuted on the network in December, the series premiere drew in approximately 770,000 viewers across the various platforms of the ViacomCBS premium cabler, Deadline reported at the time. That marked the largest audience in Showtime’s history for a limited drama series premiere. Those numbers only improved as the season continued, with the first batch of 10 episodes averaged over 6 million viewers a week across the platform, according to Variety. The 10-episode miniseries became the biggest debut season in Showtime Networks’ history. Kim Lemon, executive vice president of research, program planning & scheduling, told Variety, “It’s really the biggest show on our network right now, and it has and surpassed all of our expectations. It had a great concept with a fantastic star attached.” With the massive success, Showtime had been hoping to hand out a second season, despite Your Honor’s limited series status.

“We were blown away by Your Honor… by the power of Peter’s storytelling, by the depth of Bryan’s performance, and by the overwhelming reaction from our subscribers who watched in record numbers,” Gary Levine, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks, said, as Deadline reports. “Imagine our delight when we learned that Peter believed he had more story to tell and Bryan felt he had more depths to plumb. So, along with its millions of fans, I am gleefully shouting ‘Encore!’”

Along with Cranston, Your Honor stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Hope Davis, Hunter Doohan, Carmen Ejogo, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Sofia Black-D’Elia. Guest stars include Maura Tierney, Amy Landecker, Margo Martindale, Lorraine Toussaint, Benjamin Flores Jr., Chet Hanks, Lamar Johnson, and Lilli Kay. Your Honor Season 2 is set to premiere sometime in 2022.