HBO Hopes 'Industry' Will Finally Catch Viewers Attention with Season 3

Over the years, quite a few British shows on HBO have been produced in conjunction with the BBC, airing here on Sundays and in the U.K. on Mondays. The earliest, arguably most famous, was Rome, back in 2005, but Gentleman Jack was also one, as was His Dark Materials (though in that case, the BBC aired it on Sundays and HBO on Mondays). Game of Thrones was famously nearly one of those shows, and though the BBC pulled out in an abundance of caution (and to its regret), the series did follow the Sunday/Monday routine. The point is, up until the summer of 2020 and the beginning of the HBO Max debacle, when the British series aired on HBO, people knew about them and tuned in.

Sadly, since the summer of 2020, that hasn't been the case, as first, the AT&T overlords took the foolish "if it's there, people will automatically find it" approach (no), and now Warner Bros Discovery plays "hide the HBO" of it all. The show that perhaps suffered more than most from this is Industry, which debuted in November 2020. An ensemble production set in the world of finance, this series is the opposite of Succession: young graduates, some from upper-class backgrounds and some faking it, entering the high-powered world of London's Pierpoint & Co. Investment Bank as interns, ruthlessly competing to get hired on in one of the few permanent positions on offer.

The show has been a smash hit on the BBC, moving quickly from BBC Two to BBC One, and most of the core cast has broken out since its debut. Marisa Abela, who plays the ambitious Yasmin Kara-Hanani, also stars in COBRA and recently headlined Back to Black. David Jonsson, who plays Eton grad Gus Sackey, toplined Murder is Easy over the holidays; meanwhile, Myha'la Herrold, as the show's token American, Harper, has gotten so famous in the U.K., she's gone mononymous.