National Geographic is going back to Mars. Ron Howard gives us an update on season 2.
National Geographic’s Mars, the network’s first foray into the (quasi) scripted television world, was a successful mission. Continuing a trend we’ve seen with “event series” that exceed expectations, National Geographic picked up Mars season 2. That announcement came at the winter TCA tour, but executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer gave an update on the second season at National Geographic’s “Further Front” presentation in New York.
Mars will have a new showrunner for its second season. Dee Johnson, who was mostly recently an executive producer on Nashville for four seasons, will board the experimental docu-drama format series.
Season one is set in 2033 and follows a fictional narrative of the first human mission to the red planet, with the documentary portion exploring what it would actually take for human to get to Mars. Season two will focus on the colonization of Mars and private sector space exploration.
“Our next season is going to be more about actual colonization,” Howard told Den of Geek prior to the upfront presentation. “And there is a tremendous amount of research that has already gone on and is ongoing, and we're covering that. But also the story and what it's going to mean for the first human beings to actually build a new existence there. So there's a lot of human drama.”
Mars is based on the book How We'll Live on Mars by Stephen Petranek. Howard and Grazer's’ Imagine Entertainment and RadicalMedia produce the series. The six-episode first season was seen by 36 million viewers globally according to National Geographic, and was their most DVR'd series in network history.
Mars Season 2 Release Date
Mars is slated to return to National Geographic in 2018. We'll keep you posted on an official premiere date.