Primetime Dramageddon

How money, personality, and ego almost cost HBO its most acclaimed drama since Game of Thrones. An exclusive excerpt from the media read of the year.

- By Felix Gillette and John Koblin

On Sunday nights in June 2018, HBO began airing Succession-a show about an aging billionaire and his retinue of suck-ups, yes-men, and bumbling courtiers that seemed perfectly tailored to the preoccupations of liberal viewers spellbound by the daily indignities and nepotistic excesses of the Trump presidency.

At the outset Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the founder and chief executive officer of Waystar Royco-a global entertainment conglomerate with cruise ships, a movie studio, and a right-leaning cable TV news network, reminiscent of Rupert Murdoch's media empire-is turning 80 and seemingly on the brink of retirement.

His pending abdication has set up a dynastic power struggle among his jaded, emotionally stunted adult children. There is Kendall (Jeremy Strong), a spineless, coke-snorting, jargon-spewing wannabe business titan; Roman (Kieran Culkin), a foul-mouthed smart aleck; Connor (Alan Ruck), a libertarian flancur; and Siobhan "Shiv" (Sarah Snook), a shrewd political operative.

Logan, the gruff, all-powerful patriarch, disdains them all.

Jesse Armstrong, the show's creator, is a British screenwriter who got his start in TV making sketch comedy programs and children's sitcoms. In 2003 he co-created the long-running, darkly humorous British sitcom Peep Show for Channel 4. Later he worked with Armando Iannucci-the creator of HBO's Veep-as a writer on the British government satire The Thick of It and its 2009 spin-off movie, In the Loop.