When a new series becomes a hit with audiences, there is typically a desire for more as quickly as possible. However, for Showtime’s multiple Emmy nominated series, more Yellowjackets will not be coming as soon as previously hoped. Fans will possibly have to wait till next year before the show’s second season will return to the small screen.
Speaking to The Wrap, series co-creators and showrunners Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson said that the second season of the addictive series will begin production at the end of August, and the series will have to then target an early 2023 release to make its comeback. “We’re looking into the first quarter of 2023,” Lyle said when quizzed about when the series might return. “We are on a very similar production track in terms of time as we were last season, although, of course, we have to shoot an additional episode because we had already shot the pilot the last time. I believe we are going to finish shooting in about February and we’ll be airing sometime shortly after that.”
Certainly, this would sting fans of the series who had hoped for the show to return at the end of 2022 as suggested by Showtime Networks President of Entertainment Gary Levine to TV Insider. “We are working towards a premiere at the end of 2022,” he said. “We’d love to stay on an annual cycle.” Levine went on to add that given the momentum garnered by the show since its debut in November 2021, it would be best not to pass up on that.
Wanting to get back to the show that aired its first season finale on January 16 is something showrunner Lyle shares with fans. “Nobody wanted to get back on the air quickly more than we did. But we really rolled directly from finishing up Season 1 into Season 2,” Lyle said. Going on to explain the serialized nature of the show and why attention to detail is required to get it right.
The show being set in two separate timelines makes the production of the show all the more complex and living up to the quality of the first season is not lost on creator and showrunner Nickerson:
“One thing about the show doing really well, that maybe I hadn’t anticipated, was how much responsibility Ashley and I and Jonathan and the whole team feel to earn the level of affection the audience is showing,” Nickerson added. “The idea of delivering something that wasn’t as good as the first season was just too much to bear. So I said, ‘I think that we should take a little more time with this and just make sure it’s really good.’”
Yellowjackets follows a team of New Jersey high school soccer players travelling for a national tournament in Seattle in 1996. With their plane over Canada, it crashes deep in the wilderness and those who survive are left to battle the elements and stay alive for nineteen months. Yellowjackets shows their attempts at survival while also tracking their present-day lives. The cast of the series include Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Ella Purnell, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Sammi Hanratty, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis.
Yellowjackets is available to stream on Showtime. Check out an official trailer for the first season:
