The second series of The Night Manager is nearing the end and BBC viewers are keen to know if season three is on the cards
There were almost 10 years between The Night Manager season one and two and with the latter wrapping up with a highly-anticipated episode on Sunday, February 2, many are keen to know if a third series is in the works.
BBC‘s The Night Manager follows MI6 operative Jonathan Pine, played by Tom Hiddleston, who returned for season two under the aliases of Alex Goodwin and Matthew Ellis.
The new season has welcomed back lots of the show’s former cast members including Olivia Colman, Douglas Hodge, Michael Nardone, and Noah Jupe, as well as Pine’s enemy Richard Roper, played by Hugh Laurie, with the pair coming face to face again for the first time in the penultimate episode of season two.
Episode five ended on a major cliffhanger, with Basil Karapetian, played by Paul Chahidi, appearing to be shot dead after he stepped in to set up Pine’s latest undercover operation. The final instalment will also determine the loyalties of Roper’s son Teddy Dos Santos, played by newcomer Diego Calva, and his business partner Roxana Bolaños, Camila Morrone.
But with the final episode looming, many want to know if a third season is on the cards. Here’s what we know.
Will there be a third season of The Night Manager?
The Night Manager is based on the characters created by John le Carré, but unlike the first series, the second season is an expansion of the book, not an adaptation.
Speaking about this ahead of the second series, Tom Hiddleston said: “David Farr has achieved the impossible. The Night Manager was based on a novel by John le Carré, there was no second novel, no sequel. David has written it with all the sophistication and complexity that le Carré would approve of and admire. Teddy, Roxana, Colombia, Alex Goodwin and Matthew Ellis have all emerged from David’s imagination. This is where he chose to go, and we all followed him there. “
With this in mind, director Georgi Banks-Davies, was asked if there’d been any talk of continuing the writing to include a third season. Speaking to Variety, she said: “There was a third season that was always in the offing. David [Farr] is writing it now — he’s at the coalface and in the early stage.
“But yeah, when the the second season came the plan was to go to three. So when you see our whole series, you’ll see it can sit entirely alone but can also sit very much as the second book in the trilogy.”
Meanwhile, when asked about a season three earlier this month, Tom told TV Insider: “It’s not in official pre-production, but it’s in official development… We’re working on it, we’re refining the story and the architecture of what we really like.
“It’s very exciting because we’ve always been able to plan Season 2 and Season 3 as a two-volume story — 12 hours and 12 episodes are very different from six episodes, so we know where the story ends.”
And while BBC hasn’t confirmed if and when we can expect a third season, if the team are working on it currently, it’s unlikely going to be a decade-long wait before the series makes its comeback.
The Night Manager season two finale airs Sunday, February 2 at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.