The first season of the American satirical comedy-drama television series Succession premiered on HBO on June 3, 2018. Series creator Jesse Armstrong serves as the showrunner for the season. The series centers on the Roy family, the owners of global media and entertainment conglomerate Waystar RoyCo, and their fight for control of the company amidst uncertainty about the health of the family's patriarch. The season features an ensemble cast of Hiam Abbass, Nicholas Braun, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Peter Friedman, Natalie Gold, Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Ruck, Parker Sawyers, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong and Rob Yang.
In June 2016, HBO gave Succession a pilot order, to be written by Armstrong and directed by executive producer Adam McKay, and was filmed in late 2016. The series was greenlit for a season order in May 2017, which began filming in October 2017, and wrapped in early 2018. The season consists of ten episodes, and received critical acclaim. It was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards, and won Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the episode "Nobody Is Ever Missing".
Showrunner Jesse Armstrong initially conceived the series as a feature film about the Murdoch family, but the script never went into production. Armstrong eventually expanded the scope of the story to include the larger landscape of Wall Street, which he felt better suited a television format. Armstrong wrote a new script centered on original characters loosely inspired by various powerful media families such as the Murdochs, the Redstones, the Maxwells, and the Sulzbergers. On June 6, 2016, it was announced that HBO had given the production a pilot order. The episode was written by Armstrong and directed by Adam McKay. Executive producers for the pilot include Armstrong, McKay, Will Ferrell, Frank Rich, and Kevin Messick. On May 16, 2017, it was announced that HBO had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of ten episodes. The previously announced creative team continued their involvement as the series entered into production.
On October 6, 2016, it was announced that Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Nicholas Braun, and Matthew Macfadyen had been cast in lead roles in the series' pilot. On November 4, 2016, it was announced that Hiam Abbass, Alan Ruck, Rob Yang, Parker Sawyers, and Peter Friedman had also joined the main cast of the pilot. Sawyers only appears in the pilot. On January 24, 2018, it was reported that Ashley Zukerman had joined the series in a recurring role.
The series was primarily filmed in Manhattan, and shot on 35 mm film. The series is distinct for its predominantly handheld cinematography, which was inspired by the Dogme 95 movement and intended to embody the style of mockumentaries. Cinematographer Patrick Capone characterized the series' camerawork as "voyeuristic" and "non-cinema[tic]", relying on natural light, close coverage and frequent zooms to evoke the feeling of "eavesdropping" upon the characters and their environments.
Director Adam McKay filmed the pilot in late 2016, while principal photography for the rest of the first season of the series began in October 2017. Key locations included the American Irish Historical Society on Fifth Avenue as the location for Logan's apartment, 714 Broadway as the location of Shiv's season 1 apartment, and the Downtown Manhattan Heliport on the East River for scenes of the Roys departing on their helicopters. For scenes depicting the interiors of the Waystar RoyCo offices, the crew uses towers 4 and 7 of the World Trade Center, while 28 Liberty Street is used for exterior shots. Silvercup Studios in Queens houses many of the sets used for the series.
Other filming locations for the first season included Bellevue Hospital (where the second episode took place), the Cunard Building on 25 Broadway (which houses Cipriani S.A., the venue for a gala in the fourth episode), the East New York Freight Tunnel (the entrance of a bachelor party in the eighth episode), and the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. From mid-to-end of January 2018, the production moved from New York to New Mexico for the episode "Austerlitz", which was primarily filmed in Santa Fe. On February 22, 2018, filming took place in New Jersey, which required the closing of the Atlantic City-Brigantine tunnel. On February 25, 2018, filming took place at Eastnor Castle near Ledbury in Herefordshire, England, which served as the setting for the last two episodes of the season.
On April 27, 2018, the season held its official world premiere during the Series Mania Festival in Lille, France, in which the pilot episode was screened. On May 22, 2018, the season held its official US premiere at the Time Warner Center in New York City. The season premiered on HBO on June 3, 2018.
HBO released the first season on DVD on August 6, 2018, which included special features; a Blu-ray release was made available on November 6 of the same year.
The series premiere drew 582,000 live viewers, down from the 1.39 million viewers that watched its lead-in, Westworld.
The first season was met with positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds an approval rating of 89% with an average rating of 7.9/10, based on 89 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Peppering its pathos with acid wit, Succession is a divine comedy of absolute power and dysfunction – brought to vivid life by a ferocious ensemble." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 70 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
The first season received five nominations at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series, and Jesse Armstrong won for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (for the episode "Nobody Is Ever Missing").
- ^ Pilot only.
- ^ Attributed to multiple sources:
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