AMC Renews Moonhaven for Season 2

AMC+ has renewed Moonhaven for Season 2. The sci-fi/drama series from Peter Ocko (Lodge 49) first premiered this month and will end its six-episode run on August 4th. The reported plan is for Moonhaven Season 2 to follow suit and run another six episodes, which are slated to premiere in 2023. According to AMC, Moonhaven has joined the hit new series Dark Winds in setting new viewership records for AMC’s streaming service. However, while Dark Winds has the benefit of also running on AMC TV, Moonhaven has been an AMC+ exclusive, making its success an even bigger achievement for the network. 

Moonhaven stars Emma McDonald, Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings), Ayelet Zurer (Man of Steel, Daredevil), Joe Manganiello (Zack Snyder’s Justice League), Kadeem Hardison (A Different World) and Yazzmin Newell.

Moonhaven focuses on Bella Sway, a lunar cargo pilot and smuggler 100 years in the future who finds herself accused of a crime and marooned on Moonhaven, a utopian community set on a 500 square mile Garden of Eden built on the Moon to find solutions to the problems that will soon end civilization on Mother Earth. A skeptic in Paradise, Bella is sucked into a conspiracy to gain control of the artificial intelligence responsible for Moonhaven’s miracles and teams with a local detective to stop the forces that want to destroy Earth’s last hope before they are destroyed themselves.

Moonhaven has a 63% Critic Rating on Rotten Tomatoes – but it may be more telling that the Audience Score sits at 43%. 

Time Magazine reviewer Judy Berman insists that Moonhaven’s sci-fi quandaries more than make up for any production flaws: 

“These are the kinds of inquiries that good science fiction makes. And despite some tin-eared dialogue, Moonhaven poses them subtly-a particular relief at a time when genre fiction more often screams its political allegories from computer-generated mountaintops… Of course the conflicts it sets up around power and privilege are relevant. But the resolutions aren’t simple; in a first season that’s almost prefatory, apparently easy answers often lead to new, more complicated questions. Why would a person willingly leave utopia? Before you ask, make sure you understand what utopia really means.”

The Beat’s Therese Lacson doesn’t buy that view, saying Moonhaven is just all over the place: 

“At the end of the day, while Moonhaven is an interesting concept, and there are certainly moments in it that are beautiful and thoughtful, it can’t see the forest for the trees. It feels like it’s throwing a lot against the wall, hoping most of it sticks.”

Moonhaven is now streaming on AMC+. 

Source: Deadline