Two autumn series have received a second season order — despite having never released a single episode to the public.
According to Deadline, Lifetime's stalker drama YOU, starring Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley, has received a second season order. The news, from the Television Critic's Association press tour, comes almost two months before the show is set to debut its first on Lifetime 9th September. In the UK rights have been purchased by Netflix with a release date still TBC.
The second season of the series, which is based on Caroline Kepnes' novel of the same name, will reportedly be based on the author's follow-up book. Hidden Bodies, the highly-anticipated sequel to YOU, follows Badgley's Joe after he has made the leap from New York City to Los Angeles. What happened to Beck, the NYC-based grad student whom Elizabeth Lail portrays on the series? Guess we'll have to tune in to the first season of YOU to find out.
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Streaming is making its own multiple-season bets. Amazon gave Homecoming a two-season order in 2017, despite the series still waiting to stream new episodes on the platform. Based on the popular fictional podcast, which itself has two seasons, the show stars Julia Roberts as a caseworker at a secret government facility who helps soldiers adjust to life back home. Or does she?
We'll have to find out the exact nature of Roberts' character, and this "secret government facility," when the show drops on UK Amazon Prime 2nd November.
The faith placed in these shows to knock it out of the park for not just one season, but two, isn't exactly unprecedented. Both shows come from hot source material with enough content to warrant multiple seasons of a TV series. With major producers onboard (Sam Esmail of Mr. Robot for Homecoming and CW King Greg Berlanti for YOU), a dual season order feels like a no-brainer.
And if fans love it, as the powers that be clearly expect them to? Well, at least the stress of hoping for a renewal is off the table.