The third season of True Detective won’t premiere on HBO in 2018 as expected, but in 2019 instead. Starring recent Academy Award-winner Mahershala Ali alongside Stephen Dorff and Carmen Ejogo, the upcoming season of HBO’s anthology crime drama starts production next month, but it’s following a recent trend in the HBO realm of giving what are arguably the most anticipated shows a prolonged delay.


If this 2019-based delay sounds familiar, HBO recently announced a similar release date pertaining to the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones.


As reported by The Playlist, according to HBO programming president Casey Bloys, they “couldn’t have it ready for ’18.” True Detective’s third season will follow the show’s unorthodox storytelling style, framing a single unsolved crime in the Ozarks over three different time periods. Ali will star as a Northwest Arkansas state police detective, Dorff will star as his partner, and Ejogo will star as a local schoolteacher personally connected to two missing children. What’s more is that creator/showrunner/writer Nic Pizzolatto will be trying his hands at directing this season, sharing duties with director Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room). In fact, Pizzolatto will also be sharing writing credits with writer David Milch (Deadwood).


There’s quite a bit of pressure riding on this upcoming season, what with season 2 hitting a significant sophomore slump. Compared to the first season’s glowing reviews, even HBO’s president of programming Michael Lombardo said that he blames himself for season 2’s shortcomings. In an interview with The Frame, he said:

“I take the blame. I became too much of a network executive at that point. We had huge success. ‘Gee, I’d love to repeat that next year.’ Well, you know what? I set him up. To deliver, in a very short time frame, something that became very challenging to deliver. That’s not what that show is. He had to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Find his muse. And so I think that’s what I learned from it. Don’t do that anymore.”

So, with two heavy-hitters getting benched this year, does HBO have what it takes to keep audiences from rioting through the streets? In terms of recurring shows, Westworld, Divorce, Silicon Valley, and the final season of Veep are on the 2018 slate, while newcomers like Steven Soderbergh’s app-born Mosaic, Alan Ball’s social commentary Here and Now, Bill Hader’s hitman comedy Barry, and Adam McKay’s not-so-funny Succession, should do well to keep audiences entertained. In the meantime, HBO’s biggest concern will be making sure that a year’s worth of anticipation doesn’t plague the upcoming season of True Detective with unrealistic expectations.