Photo: HBO
Last year, Boardwalk Empire got a season-two renewal a mere two days after airing its series premiere. This year, that vote of confidence took a little longer — HBO announced its season-three order today, after three episodes of its second season have already aired, but that’s still pretty fast by TV standards, and surely you didn’t think that HBO would cancel its primary prestige drama (and expensive Emmy bait) so soon? Ratings have dropped off a bit from last season’s big numbers, but the show has stabilized, and while HBO would no doubt prefer a somewhat less expensive version of the show, you can only slash Paz de le Huerta’s wardrobe budget so much.