HBO Sets Premiere Date for Final Season of Porn Drama ‘The Deuce’

The Deuce, the HBO period drama that chronicles the early days of the American adult entertainment industry in New York City, will be canceled after the third season of the show, as reported earlier. Now, the pay-cable network—which has been owned by telecommunications giant AT&T since February—has announced a premiere date for the final season. And the Twitter post on HBO’s account drops a hint about the setting of the third season. As pictured above, the tweet contains an image of a VHS tape, and the message—which HBO explains as a joke—“The Deuce final season is coming to VHS.” HBO is apparently moving The Deuce to its Monday night time slot for the show's final season, with a premiere date of September 9. The VHS videotape format debuted for the United States market in 1977, becoming widely popular in the early to mid 1980s. As with many new technologies, the porn industry became an earlier adopter, and the convenience of home video turned the business on its head. HBO’s VHS tweet, however, appears to reveal that the third and final season takes place in the 1980s, a jump ahead from the first two seasons, which were set in the early and mid 1970s. In fact, according to Vulture.com, the series picks up with the ‘80s “in full swing.” But as Deadline.com noted, the 1980s also brought a changing real estate market to New York City, hastening the demise of what had been a thriving adult industry in that city as the 1980s progressed. Though The Deuce has received wide critical acclaim for its first two seasons, the series created by David Simon—who was behind HBO’s now-legendary police drama The Wire—and crime novelist George Pelecanos never reached a sustainable audience. Last September, after HBO announced that the show would be renewed for one last season, rating plunged to a series low, with the episode airing on the heels of the renewal announcement drawing only 585,000 viewers, down from a high of 2.2 million for the September 2017 series premiere.  Photo By HBO Twitter Account