The second season of popular fantasy series The Shannara Chronicles will air on Spike TV this fall. The first season of the original scripted drama, based on the best-selling fantasy book series by Terry Brooks, debuted on MTV in 2016. Filmed on location in New Zealand, the new season will consist of 10 one-hour episodes. Details of the premiere date and time for season two will be announced in the coming weeks.
This news comes just one month after MTV, a unit of Viacom, announced it renewed The Shannara Chronicles for a second season. The announcement was made just head of the 2016 MTV Upfront presentation last month, but it is not known why this series based on Terry Brooks novels has switched networks. Still, since Viacom owns both MTV and Spike TV, there won't be much a a big transition between the networks. Developed at Sonar Entertainment, the series is co-produced by MTV, Sonar and Farah Films. For Spike TV fans who aren't familiar with the show, you can get caught up this summer, with a brand new marathon of the entire first season on Spike.
Spike will introduce its viewers to the critically-acclaimed series this summer as it will encore season one beginning on Thursday, June 29 at 11:00pm ET/PT, directly following the Spike original series, The Mist. The Shannara Chronicles stars Austin Butler (Wil), Ivana Baquero (Eretria), Manu Bennett (Allanon), Aaron Jakubenko (Ander) and Marcus Vanco (Bandon) along with new cast members Vanessa Morgan (Lyria), Malese Jow (Mareth), Gentry White (Garet), Caroline Chikezie (Queen Tamlin), and Desmond Chiam (General Riga).
Season two takes place one year after the events of last season. The Four Lands are in chaos. The re-emergence of magic has the populace terrified, and an organization called The Crimson is hunting down magic users, using fear and intimidation to sow discord among the races. Wil, scarred by the loss of Amberle and his separation from Eretria, has turned his back on his magical destiny to become a healer. But when a mysterious woman named Mareth saves Wil from a Crimson attack, he is forced to rejoin the fight.
The Shannara Chronicles is created by Al Gough and Miles Millar based on the Shannara series of books written by Terry Brooks. The series is executive produced by Gough & Millar, Brooks, Jon Favreau, Jonathan Liebesman, and Dan Farah. The series is produced and distributed worldwide by Sonar Entertainment in association with Millar/Gough Ink and Farah Films. The first season of The Shannara Chronicles averaged a 0.98 L3 rating in MTV's core P12-34 demo and ranks as MTV's top-rated new series this year. Additionally, Shannara saw the highest average L7 lift (+106%) for a freshman series in MTV history. The Shannara Chronicles was also a strong performer on digital platforms, where it garnered 16.6 million streams across all MTV's digital properties and brought significant traffic growth to the MTV App. The series also ranks as the highest grossing digital download for a single season on MTV ever.