In a somewhat surprising move, AMC has renewed Turn this week. The Revolutionary War drama has a killer premise and an excellent cast, but it failed to gain a ton of traction during its first season at the cable network. Still, it looks like AMC saw enough promise in Turn to sign on for a second season of the drama, which stars Jamie Bell, Heather Lind and Kevin McNally.
The news broke on Twitter, although AMC later released some details about the show’s upcoming season. According to the cable network, Turn will return for Season 2 in 2015. AMC is currently eyeing a spring premiere date, and, similar to Season 1, 10 episodes of the hit series will be produced. But first, here’s the tweet heard around the world.
Earlier we noted that Turn’s renewal is somewhat surprising. The show’s premiere only garnered 2 million totally viewers, and later in the season, some episodes barely nabbed over a million total viewers during first run. Regardless, it’s not as if AMC is being completely foolish by renewing Turn. The show managed a steady audience during its Season 1 run, and by the time the finale premiered, the show was steadily increasing in the ratings, with the initial airing of the finale bringing in 1.6 million total viewers. As AMC is noting, when counting live+3 ratings, the show was averaging 2 million total viewers. While at first the numbers look a little more akin to something like Low Winter Sun than The Walking Dead, it actually seems as if Turn has built itself a nice little niche fanbase—numbers which seem to be growing rather than falling.
To support the Season 2 renewal, AMC is also marketing Turn through the summer. New episodes of Hell on Wheels begin airing on August 2 at 9 p.m. ET and AMC will air encore performances of each of the Turn episodes after Hell on Wheels on Saturday nights. It could prove to be a pretty marketable strategy. Hell on Wheels is also a period drama, and the August-based schedule could draw in viewers who didn’t have time to catch a new series in the spring.
It will likely be a few months before we hear any new news related to Turn, but we will let you know as soon as AMC cements a few more details.
