It's bigger than Yellowjackets, but this Showtime series is ending soon

It's bigger than Yellowjackets, but this Showtime series is ending soon

(Image credit: Showtime)

Popular Showtime series Your Honor is set to end with its upcoming second season. 

The show’s star, Bryan Cranston, confirmed as much on a recent episode (opens in new tab) of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, revealing that he is currently “preparing for [its] second and last season.” 

Your Honor, which was adapted from Israeli series Kvodo and originally conceived as a single-season production for Showtime, follows Cranston’s Michael Desiato, a prominent New Orleans judge whose integrity is threatened when his son is involved in a fatal hit-and-run incident. Michael Stuhlbarg and Hope Davis also star in the show. 

“As [Showtime] tell me, [Your Honor] got higher ratings than any other series they’ve ever had,” Cranston said on Shepard’s podcast, in reference to the show’s unexpectedly stellar first-year performance. For context, it raked in 7.4 million viewers, the most of any new Showtime production since the Damian Lewis-starring Billions launched in 2016. 

Not even last year’s critical hit Yellowjackets outperformed the gritty legal thriller for the ViacomCBS-owned streaming service, which says something of its commercial and cultural value.

Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston plays a troubled judge in Your Honor. (Image credit: Showtime)

Incidentally, reviewers weren’t as unanimously impressed by Your Honor. The limited series sports a lackluster 50% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes (opens in new tab), with verdicts ranging from “chillingly visceral and mightily intense” to “excruciating to watch.” Ouch.

Still, neither Showtime nor the cast and crew of Your Honor will care much about the so-so critical reception to its debut season (as it happens, Joey Hartstone, who served as a principal writer on the show’s early episodes, has been promoted to showrunner for season 2).

We haven't yet been given a premiere date for Your Honor’s return, but we do know that its second season will comprise 10 episodes. As with season 1, the series will be available to stream on Showtime Anytime in the US and Sky and Now TV in the UK.

If you're keen to catch more top-notch TV this year, check out our roundups of the best shows on Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video, HBO Max, Apple TV Plus and Hulu.