The world will continue to teeter on The Brink for a while longer – HBO has handed out a second season order to the freshman political comedy, which was created by Roberto and Kim Benabib.
Jack Black, Tim Robbins and Pablo Schreiber topline the show, about how a geopolitical crisis affects three different men – a lowly Foreign Service officer (Black), the U.S. Secretary of State (Robbins) and a loose-cannon fighter pilot (Schreiber). Maribeth Monroe, Carla Gugino, Esai Morales, Geoff Pierson, Aasif Mandvi and Eric Ladin all co-star.
In its first season, The Brink was an imperfect but nonetheless watchable comedy that seemed to fall a little short of its potential, focusing on broad raunchy humor as opposed to legitimately toothy political satire. I wrote in my three-star review:
That the threat of nuclear Armageddon only accelerates the volume of dick jokes in The Brink’s war room is at one level deeply amusing but at another somewhat frustrating, especially given how the gutsy premise sets up a much smarter and more stinging satire than this appears to be.
As such, it’s great to see that HBO is going to give the series a chance to spread its wings and improve in its sophomore run. The renewal has HBO two-for-two with its new comedies – Dwayne Johnson-toplined Ballers was renewed a lot earlier on after proving a sizable hit for the premium cable network.
It’s not that surprising that The Brink pulled out a victory here, though – HBO has a long-standing track record of supporting the shows it orders to series. It’s exceedingly rare for an HBO show to end up being a one-and-one, no matter how unimpressive the ratings are. Additionally, the star power of Black and Robbins, coupled with The Brink‘s format (moving from one crisis to another with every new season), likely has HBO high on the idea of a new comedy stalwart.
