Showtime’s The Man Who Fell to Earth aired its first season finale on Sunday but that may not be the end of Faraday’s story. Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman created The Man Who Fell to Earth as a sequel to the 1976 films of the same name starring David Bowie, itself based on the 1963 novel by Walter Tevis. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the alien Faraday with Bill Nighy as Thomas Newton, Faraday’s predecessor played by Bowie in the original movie. The series has been well received by critics but Showtime hasn’t announced a second season yet. Kurtzman remains hopeful that a sophomore season is coming.
“You know, I think that I never like to count my chickens, and honestly, I feel like I want to approach every season of every show in some ways as if it were the last season because I think that the audience needs to feel like the journey that they just spent eight to 10 to 12 episodes on is fulfilling in and of itself,” Kurtzman tells Deadline. “Do we have a second season in mind? Sure. Sure.”
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Those second-season ideas didn’t start to come together until well into production on this first season. “Well, I think halfway through the first season, it became clear we wanted a second season,” Kurtzman says. “Obviously, the finale sets up a lot of things. Are the aliens coming back? What is that going to look like? If Season 1 was an immigration metaphor, forget about Season 2 when they all show up. That feels like a really compelling area of attack.”
For his part, Ejiofor would be content if the series ended with Sunday’s finale. “I would say from my perspective, there was something very whole about it and that was what was immediately exciting,” he says.” That there was a completeness to it. You know, it wasn’t the sort of structure where you kind of had all of these questions at the end and all sort of held on a cliffhanger and you don’t feel satisfied by the conclusion of it. It felt like as a performer, as an actor and also reading the script, it felt like everything had been answered in an essential way, and it also left room as well. I mean, a very exciting room for the development of the story if it went that way.”
The Man Who Fell to Earth‘s entire first season is now available on Showtime.