TV Talk: ‘Your Honor’ debuts with excruciating drama

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

There’s a reason Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” became a worldwide buzz magnet: Not only is “Gambit” well-made, well-acted and impeccably produced, it also tells a story that moves consistently in a positive direction. That trajectory is comforting in these ever-unpredictable times.

In many ways Showtime’s “Your Honor” (10 p.m. Sunday), despite fine performances from Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) and Hunter Doohan as father and son, offers the opposite sensation as the situation starts badly and gets worse.

Cranston stars as a soft-hearted New Orleans judge whose son Adam (Doohan) causes a terrible accident, killing a teen, ultimately leading the judge to cover up Adam’s involvement. As lies pile up it’s the “what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive” aphorism come to life. Each bad decision requires another worse choice.

The first episode, clocking in at a full hour, goes into excruciating detail about the accident, from Adam’s paranoia, asthma attack while driving and desperate quest to reach his asthma inhaler on the car’s floor which leads to the accident, to a close-up of the victim bleeding profusely from his skull. The hour excels at building tension but that may not be something viewers are looking to embrace right about now.

Call “Your Honor” what it is: The feel-bad show of the holiday season.

Written by Peter Moffat (“The Night Of”) and executive produced by “The Good Wife”/“Good Fight” team of Michelle and Robert King, “Your Honor” begins with the deck stacked in an eye-rolling way you’d be more likely to expect from a CBS drama than a Showtime series.

Cranston’s not just a judge, he’s a judge who does his own fact-finding. Adam’s not just a nice kid with issues, he’s also mourning the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death while hiding a secret. And that’s to say nothing of the identity of the dead kid and how that layers more tension on the no-win-scenario the judge faces.

After the first episode, the cynical “Your Honor” becomes a little less painful to watch but also more predictable. Anything that can go wrong in the cover-up will go spectacularly wrong.

The arrival of the always-welcome Margo Martindale in episode four immediately improves “Your Honor” but it’s not enough to overturn the initial verdict: “Your Honor” is guilty of being a major downer.