There’s good news and bad news, and unfortunate news for us too. The good news: the third season of HBO’s “True Detective” begins shooting next month. The bad news is, even with plenty of time left in the year, “True Detective” season three won’t air on HBO until 2019, which is a further bummer because now we have to update our 50 Most Anticipated TV Shows Of 2018 feature (damn you, HBO).
The annual winter TCA press tour is in full swing which means cable execs are doing the rounds and giving away the goods. And when asked the simple question of whether “True Detective” was coming this year or not, HBO Programming President Casey Bloys simply said, “No, 2019.”With “Westworld” coming out in the spring and no “Game Of Thrones” this year, HBO will banking on “Sharp Objects” with Amy Adams and the Adam McKay drama “Succession” as their big summer players.
While “True Detective” season two stumbled with both critics and audiences, season three has got to be one of the most anticipated returning TV shows of the next 18 months. The next installment will tell the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. Ambitious in its mixing of eras, season three stars Mahershala Ali as a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas, Carmen Ejogo as an Arkansas schoolteacher with a connection to two missing children in 1980, and Stephen Dorff as Ali’s partner.
Creator/showrunner and writer Nic Pizzolatto has been itching to graduate to directing and this season he will do so alongside critically acclaimed indie filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier (“Blue Ruin,” “Green Room”), though it’s unclear how they will split up those duties. Pizzolatto has written the entire season minus one episode with legendary TV writer David Milch (“Deadwood,” Michael Mann’s short lived “Luck”), who apparently met with the writer and advised him after season two fell apart and guided him.
In related “True Detective” news, given that Milch’s relationship with Pizzolatto, the long talked about “Deadwood” movie may shoot in the fall. “David Milch is doing a rewrite that he and the producers were talking about,” Bloys said with the update. “If they can get all the actors together, which they’re trying to do — and everybody wants to do it — if they can get everybody back together, we’re looking at fall 2018 to shoot something. But a lot of things have to fall into place for that to happen. But I’m optimistic.”
We are too. “Deadwood” and a new season of “True Detective” in 2019? Dare to dream.