Some of the most beloved, critically acclaimed, and long-running TV shows took a moment to find their footing, and their audience. Season 1 of The Office was just six episodes long and emulated the original UK version a bit too closely. The first season of Sex and the City featured man-on-the-street style interviews and Carrie Bradshaw doing fourth wall breaks. Now considered one of the best shows of all time, Breaking Bad struggled to find a large audience until it landed on Netflix shortly before the Season 4 premiere. Still, they were renewed season after season.
Most shows in today’s streaming era will never get so lucky, with studios canceling shows after one or two seasons even if they have decent viewership and an established fan base. Fans of Max’s financial drama Industry feared this would happen after Season 1, but the series is now in its third season and performing better than ever, recently hitting an audience record with Episode 3. In theory, Industry is exactly the kind of show that would land on the chopping block after its first season, with no huge names or pre-existing source material to draw people in, and modest viewership numbers for both its first and second seasons. But Industry’s recent increase in viewership for Season 3 is proof that it’s worth letting a show develop and find an audience over time instead of just canceling it prematurely.
Studios Are Too Quick to Ax New TV Shows
In today’s streaming era, the fate of your favorite current show could always be at risk. Few shows will ever see the instant success of Stranger Things or Bridgerton, and the idea of letting a promising series grow into itself and develop an audience over the course of multiple seasons has all but gone out the window. In the last month alone, both My Lady Jane and The Acolyte were canceled after one season, and the list of 2024 casualties grows longer and longer as the year progresses. You might find out about a show’s cancelation before you even have a chance to watch it yourself, and it’s always disappointing to find out that a series you’ve invested time and energy in will never have a chance to resolve itself in a meaningful way.
Series that fail to get renewed for another season can sometimes suffer a fate worse than cancelation — being removed from the platform entirely. In 2021, Max’s teen dramedy Genera+ion was canceled after its first season and later removed from the platform, along with a number of other Max titles. After being renewed for a second season in May 2022, Minx, another Max original, was canceled in December of the same year while the second season was still in production. A month later, Minx was picked up by Starz and its second season finally saw the light of day in July 2023, only for the series to be canceled in January 2024, this time for good. But, like Genera+ion, Minx Season 1 is nowhere to be found on the Max platform. The trend of shows getting canceled after one season and some even getting pulled from their initial platforms speaks to a much larger problem and makes Industry‘s unlikely perseverance so surprising.
‘Industry’ Continues To Evolve Season After Season
Industry first debuted during a transitional period for HBO’s prestige TV, a year after Game of Thrones came to its disappointing end and amid Succession’s rise as the network’s next big thing. It’s often been compared to Succession — another show that found its footing after the first season — and though they share some obvious similarities, Industry has forged its own unique identity as it’s evolved year by year. Season 1 revolved around Yasmin (Marisa Abela), Harper (Myha’la), Robert (Harry Lawtey), and Gus (David Jonsson) as they competed for permanent positions at Pierpoint, while Season 2 explored their lives as fully-fledged Pierpoint employees (aside from Gus) and fleshed out supporting characters like Eric (Ken Leung) and Rishi (Sagar Radia). Season 3 follows Harper’s post-Pierpoint career, Yasmin and Robert’s struggle to hold down their jobs, and Eric’s midlife crisis, while incorporating two new major characters to shake things up.
If you were initially turned off by all of Industry‘s finance jargon, it, unfortunately, doesn’t get any less confusing as the series progresses, but, like Succession, you don’t need to understand all the minutia in order to enjoy the show. Part of what makes Industry worth returning to season after season are its characters and the actors who portray them so brilliantly. With a more diverse cast compared to Succession, Industry also explores the ways race, gender, sexuality, and social class factor into the professional and personal lives of these characters.
Now approaching the midway point of Season 3, Industry’s viewership is higher than it’s ever been, with 370,000 cross-platform viewers for Episode 3 on the night of August 24, up 23% from the season premiere. Industry also snagged the Sunday nighttime slot after House of the Dragon Season 2 came to an end, and though it may not be doing House of the Dragon numbers, this new, coveted timeslot bodes well for the future of the series.
Since the series first premiered in 2020, its young stars have all branched out and become more widely known for their work outside of Industry, which likely helped grow its fanbase going into Season 3. Abela played Amy Winehouse in Back to Black, Myha’la starred in films like Leave the World Behind and Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Jonsson, who departed the show after Season 2, recently gave one of the standout performances in Alien: Romulus. Season 3 also added bigger names to the cast, like Sarah Goldberg and Kit Harington, and Harington, in particular, has become the face of Industry when you go looking for it on the Max streaming app.
Since the Season 3 premiere, Industry has maintained its place in the Top Ten Series list on Max — not just on Sundays, but throughout the week. The boost in viewership that Industry is finally receiving in its third season is a testament to the value of giving shows room to grow and develop instead of just canceling them altogether after an inconsistent first season or lackluster early viewership numbers. Will Industry become HBO’s next big prestige series? Will it even be renewed for Season 4? At this point, it’s truly anyone’s guess.
Industry is available to stream on Max in the U.S., with new Season 3 episodes airing on Sundays.
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