The Terror, AMC’s first foray into the anthology-series trend, has been a big success for the network, ending its first season as the No. 2 drama on cable and earning high marks from critics like The A.V. Club’s own Sean T. Collins, who gave all but one episode a stellar “A” rating. (Episode two got an “A-.”) So, naturally, AMC has renewed the series for a second season, with a new showrunner (Manhattan and True Blood’s Alexander Woo), new executive producers (Woo and Kong: Skull Island writer Max Borenstein), and a chillingly timely new setting.
Season two of The Terror will take place on the west coast of the United States during World War II, and “center on an uncanny specter that menaces a Japanese-American community from its home in Southern California to the internment camps to the war in the Pacific,” according to a press release. Capping off a week where the news has been dominated with stories of a new wave of all-American internment camps, the story couldn’t be any more relevant. The show, which has yet to be cast, will feature a majority Asian and Asian-American ensemble, according to Woo.
It’s a responsibility the show’s new caretakers seem to take very seriously, with Woo saying that “we hope to convey the abject terror of the historical experience in a way that feels modern and relevant to the present moment.” Borenstein adds that “The Japanese-American internment is a blemish on the nation’s conscience … I’m thrilled that AMC is giving us the chance to use that darkness as the inspiration for what I hope will be a trenchant, terrifying season of TV.”
Season two of The Terror debuts on AMC next year.