Following a strong debut, the Starz Network has renewed crime drama Hightown for a second season, via The Hollywood Reporter. The series premiered on May 17th of this year, amassing an audience of 1.45 million viewers over a week of repeat airings.
Hightown takes place in Cape Cod, focusing on the victims of the opioid and heroin epidemics raging throughout the cities and towns of the peninsula. The main character is Jackie Quiñones, played by Monica Raymund (The Good Wife), who is an Agent of the National Marine Fisheries Service spending most of her time partying and avoiding responsibility. After finding a dead body on the beach, she attempts to turn her life around and sober up. This is interrupted as she soon becomes targeted by the police’s murder investigation and the criminal underworld of drug trafficking in Cape Cod.
Lionsgate, parent company of Starz, and Jerry Bruckheimer Television are the production companies behind the show. Bruckheimer (National Treasure) himself serves as an executive producer for the show, alongside Gary Lennon (Power), Ellen H. Schwartz (The Princess Diaries), KristieAnne Reed (Lucifer), Jonathan Littman (The Amazing Race), and the creator of Hightown, Rebecca Cutter (Gotham).
The series had one of the all-time best debuts for Starz’s original series, as a result of its linear ratings and its performance on the Starz streaming services. Starz told The Hollywood Reporter that Hightown doubled the record of the previous all-time highest debut, but no numbers were given.
Half of the first season’s eight-episode run has aired so far, with the fifth episode airing on June 15th, 2020. In the United States, all episodes are added to the Starz streaming service the day after they are set to air.