SPOILERS are ahead for Panic, Season 1 now streaming on Amazon Prime.
This weekend’s latest bingeable series is Amazon Prime’s Panic, a teen drama about the dangerous game a group of high school seniors play in order to win a major cash prize for their futures. The 10-episode season is based on a standalone novel written by Before I Fall’s Lauren Oliver but, based on that finale, we have to wonder if the story is meant to continue with the series.
CinemaBlend spoke to Panic’s author Lauren Oliver, who is also the showrunner of the series, about what we can expect following the season finale. Heather ends up winning the game’s prize money after a number of twisted rounds of challenges. While Olivia Welsh’s character attempts to drive away from the small Texas town after winning, a dummy, which includes the markings of another Panic game, is thrown at her winndshield.
So the game is on in the last few moments of Episode 10, but is it meant to be open ended or continue? Here’s what Lauren Oliver shared with us:
I am very much hoping to continue it and I was hoping to continue the book. I will say, we don’t need to get into the intricacies of publishing. I would love to, the first step is people have to love it but absolutely and certainly if we do continue it, it won’t be a set and scramble from the material. There’s tons of thinking already and tons of material that didn’t make it into the show about the rules of the game and about what might come afterwards, but we’ll see.
Like any show, viewership numbers are the show’s lifeblood and Amazon will be monitoring this aspect of the show before greenlighting a Season 2. But with that in mind, Lauren Oliver wrote the final moments of the finale with a continuation in mind, and the writer’s room is already cooking up ideas for what’s next for Panic.
As Oliver told CinemaBlend, she had always wanted to continue the Panic saga but did not get the opportunity to do so through the written medium. Now, she’s hoping she’ll have a chance to explore the world she has created further with a larger storyline beyond the first 10-episodes made available this past weekend. Oliver continued:
In the meantime, I’ve been having fun and hopefully we’ll get to do more of these Audible Shorts, which take you back sometimes ten years and that are actually really fun and great to listen to.
She’s referring to Panic’s spinoff available to Audible listeners that is an extension of the Amazon series. Titled Panic: Ghosts and Legends, the series has its cast, including Olivia Welsh, Ray Nicholson and Camron Jones, narrating each of the spinoff's three stories within the Panic world that interconnect elements that have fully explored on the series yet.
Panic is Amazon’s second YA series, following December’s The Wilds, which has since been picked up for a second season by the streaming studio due to its overwhelming viewership numbers. Time will tell what’s in store for Panic. In the meantime, check out the 2021 summer TV schedule for your next bingeing obsession.
