Watch Breaking Bad Vet Bryan Cranston's Intense Return To TV In First Trailer For New Show

bryan cranston your honor showtime

For his first major live-action TV role following his magnificent stretch as Breaking Bad's Walter White, actor Bryan Cranston made the jump to Showtime for the tension-oozing drama Your Honor. The simple logline alone is enough to cause me undue stress, and I fully expected that the show's first trailer would make that stress more tangible. Now that it's been released, I can say it's every bit as nerve-rattling as I imagined.

Check out the first trailer for Your Honor below, which puts Bryan Cranston on the opposite end of the legal spectrum from Breaking Bad's signature anti-hero (or anti-villain?) Heisenberg. Or maybe it doesn't, depending on how everything shakes out in the end.

In Your Honor, Bryan Cranston stars as the highly respected New Orleans judge Michael Desiato, whose life gets thrown for a giant, dangerous loop whenever his teenage son Adam (Hunter Doohan) is involved in a hit-and-run. That's obviously how the trailer starts, with actor Hunter Doohan standing around, covered in blood and clearly in shock. Instead of reporting the accident, however, he keeps it to himself, which is obviously the worst decision possible. Not that his father is a very good role model, with Michael advising him to keep it a secret while also helping to conceal evidence.

Naturally, that car accident involved the son of Jimmy Baxter, the head of an extremely notorious organized crime family that's played by Fargo and Boardwalk Empire vet Michael Stuhlbarg. (He starred opposite Bryan Cranston in Trumbo, too.) After Jimmy goes public with his intention to find his son's killer, Michael and his family struggle to keep themselves out of the family's crosshairs, and it looks like they'll try to stage a fake crime to throw the Baxters off the scent. Will it work? Not without lots of violence, bloodshed and Cranston's worried AF face, that's for sure.

Your Honor was created by Peter Moffat, who was a writer on The Night Of as well as the UK series it was based on, Criminal Justice; he also created acclaimed UK dramas such as Undercover and The Village. The Showtime series will also star For the People's Hope Davis, Defiance's Tony Curran, The Wire's Isiah Whitlock Jr., The Mick's Sofia Black-D'Elia, and Transparent's Amy Landecker, among others.

Bryan Cranston certainly hasn't been lazy since hanging up his hat and meth lab kit when Breaking Bad ended. For one, he even reprised the role of Walter White for a cameo in Netflix's follow-up El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Beyond that, though, he's popped up a few times on the small screen, though either in limited appearances or in voice-acting roles for projects such as Sneaky Pete, SuperMansion, Family Guy and Curb Your Enthusiasm, among others. Of course, Cranston has also been active on the film front, having recently delivered a genuinely sincere performance in Disney+'s The One and Only Ivan. But fans are definitely hoping that he'll make his truly final turn as Walter White for an appearance in Better Call Saul's final season, even though the actor is okay if that doesn't happen.

Your Honor doesn't currently have a confirmed premiere date set just yet, but Showtime announced it will be debuting in December 2020, just in time to make Santa Claus think twice about driving his sleigh around neighborhoods inhabited by any crime kingpins' family members. While waiting to hear more about the project, check out our Fall TV 2020 premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows coming in the next few months.

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.