Now everyone who keeps meaning to check out “Luck,” but hasn’t because you heard from a friend of a friend that a friend of theirs fell asleep while watching it doesn’t have to bother anymore. According to Deadline:
Luck will be no more on HBO. The pay cable network, along with Luck executive producers David Milch and Michael Mann, just announced that they’re ending the series following yesterday’s horse death, the third on the set of the horse racing drama starring Dustin Hoffman. Luck had been in the middle of production on the second episode of Season 2.
The series was facing a lot of deserved heat after, as mentioned above, a third horse, who I’ve named Clip Clop, went to the Great Glue Factory in the Sky while the show was in production. According to a veterinarian from the California Horse Racing Board, Clip Clop “was on her way back to the stall when she reared, flipped over backwards, and struck her head on the ground.” That doesn’t sound…healthy. PETA was pissed and making a fuss (they had a totally reasonable solution, too, which was to use a combination of CGI and stock footage to simulate the horse races), and “Luck” was facing a PR nightmare — combine that with mediocre ratings (500,000 viewers per episode, low even for HBO) and a lack of widespread critical support, and you’ve got a dead horse of a show. So to speak.
HBO’s usual solution to the problem.
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Nice shoes, asshole.
/only 4 months until Saratoga opens
Can’t. Wait. I once worked at the track when I was in high school, which is to say, worked outside of the track, selling Times Union blue sheets for only $1 (I think). I wasn’t a very good Newsie.
Yeah, I don’t go as often as I used to. I still go at least once a year. My daughters love looking at the horses. Btw, the promo days (free t-shirts, etc..) are the worst up there.
The year I worked there was the year Funny Cide won the Kentucky Derby. I still have the mag shaped like his head somewhere.
That was a huge year at Saratoga since Funny Cide was foaled in Saratoga.
Saratoga rules. Not just the racetrack but the town in general. Love that place.
I thought the Variety headline, “Naysayers Doom HBO Drama,” was
hilariousin extremely poor taste.Show actually wasn’t that bad…
GREGOR CLEGANE AIN’T CARE.
that poor horse never had a chance with The Mountain.
If Filmdrunk posts this story, then Uproxx will really be beating a dead horse!
*gets pelted with horseshoes*
I’m going to be hoarse after yelling at Vince if he does.
Guess I’ll hoof it over to FD then…..
The show was pretty boring. Granted I could give a fuck about a bunch of rich people and horse racing to begin with.
This seems like an opportunity for an out, and they took it.
Gooodbye hooooorseees. I’m cryying ooover yooooooou.
[tucks junk between legs]
I guess I’m in the minority, but I liked the show. It was classic David Milch — some intricate dialogue and slow-building tension — but the payoffs were there.
Great performances by Hoffman, Nolte, and Farina, and a new villain in Michael Gambon who had some real potential. (Did he cave in a bean counter’s head with a giant glass ashtray? Yes, he did.)
And some of the scenes were gorgeous. This race from the fourth episode is fucking beautiful, for instance. If the idiots at PETA think this could’ve been created with CGI, they can go choke on some tofurkey.
I’m with you. Genuinely disappointed they cancelled this, I thought it was a good multi-dimensional storyline.
Agreed on all accounts.
How exactly does the show have anything to do with the horse’s death? The horse was on its way back to a stall and bugged itself out and killed itself like a dumb animal. It’s not like it was hit by a camera or died during filming. It just happened to die during production of a show. ABC didn’t cancel that John Ritter show when he died during production, they just replaced him with David Spade and the only people who protested were fans of comedy. PETA is the worst
HORSES are the worst. All the ammunition the creationists need against evolution is right there. Those things are so fucking fragile there’s no goddamned way they managed to evolve in the wild. Those things die at the drop of a hat.
Horses is tasty; John Ritter was not.
P.S.:
“Luck” was the best show on HBO to star a horse since “Sex and The City.”
/cheap Sara Jessica Parker joke
//I apologize for nothing
What about that episode of Real Time with Bill Maher that featured Ann Coulter?
So much for the racing horses. Bring on the dancing ones!
Looks like someone’s a big Echo & The Bunnymen fan.
I still like to think that this show was the end product of Chris Elliot’s jockey sitcom pitch on The Larry Sanders Show.
My hope is that this news brings the “I Hate Horses” guy out of retirement.
Not Clip Clop!
To expose my own ineptitude: I was constantly rewinding the episodes because some character’s reaction would go right over my head and I’d have to puzzle it out, or because one of several actors who subscribe to the “mumble method” of acting were giving a prolonged monologue that often just started as if you’d already been in a conversation.
I’m saying I’m dumb AND that it was a pretty challenging show.
Dear HBO and PETA fags, For every day that LUCK remains cancelled, I shall murder 2 horses. Your move ye pinko terrorist scum.
P.S. You could just bring back Carnivale instead. I wanna see how that mofo was gonna end.
Fuck that, I want them to resume Deadwood.
Deadwood and Justified on at the same time may be too much awesomeness to take at the same time.
Yup. Still mourning the blueballed ending of Deadwood here, too.
I wanna know what the fuck was going on in John From Cincinnati. (not even that good but there were so many unanswered questions.)
This show makes me flushed and glowing and bridled with excitement…..
So the horse reared so hard it backflipped and landed on its own head? Was it playing QWOP?