The Night Manager season 2: What’s the status on this MIA show?

In this edition of our month-long MIA Shows article series, we’re putting the focus on one in The Night Manager that has certainly been in the ether for some time. The first season aired all the way back in February 2016 and yet, there’s still no definite word on if the Tom Hiddleston spy drama is coming back for more.

It was a really long time ago that it was first reported that BBC and co-producer AMC were considering the idea of bringing the series back. Yet, that’s no easy task given that the John le Carre adaptation had a pretty open-and-shut season 1. There’s no definite need to bring the series back and yet nonetheless, it may be something that is still considered.

Earlier this year, though, there was a rather-frank response given by Simon Cornwell, son of le Carre, in a new interview with Television magazine:

“Actually, not being cute, I really don’t know … We don’t have scripts for it yet, and we would only think about making a second series of The Night Manager if it was going to be really good. And I’m sure that Hugh [Laurie] and Tom [Hiddleston] and Olivia [Colman], who are not exactly underemployed actors, won’t want to come back unless it’s excellent, frankly. And, you know, we have all of le Carré’s body of work to pick from.”

Basically, this means that there’s probably not going to be any in the near future — especially given that Hiddleston has signed on to do an upcoming Thor limited series for the Disney+ streaming service. Meanwhile, Colman is playing Queen Elizabeth on The Crown through season 4. Unless you make some enormous change with the cast, which feels unlikely, it may be 2020 until people are even available to do it. At that point, will there even be enough people who remember season 1 of The Night Manager for it to really even matter? We’re not altogether sure that there will be. Of course, this is assuming that some of these actors don’t end up getting booked for a number of other things along the way.

So, for now, we’d say to throw this particular show in the unlikely-to-come-back pile. Sometimes, it’s fine for a limited series to be strictly that. Not every single show in the known world needs to be come back and produced for many more seasons. This was a great season in the time in which it was around but now, it may be time for everyone to move forward and simply take on whatever is coming next.

Of course, now that we’ve spelled all of that out, we’ll definitely have more on The Night Manager season 2 the moment that there are some further updates.

Do you still want to see The Night Manager season 2 happen? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: BBC.)