‘Nightsleeper’ Sets New Cast for Second Season Thrill Ride
'Nightsleeper' has unveiled the cast for its forthcoming second season. Now all it needs is to cross the pond.
When Fox’s 24 first debuted in 2001, it was a novelty series inspired by broadcast TV seasons running ~24 episodes a season (a drop from the 28-32 episodes that were the previous norm), the same number of hours in a day. The series introduced the idea of a “real-time” day in the character’s life in which he never stopped running to save people.
The suspension of disbelief collapsed after the first couple of seasons (24 hours without eating, sleeping, or even a bathroom break?), but the show was ahead of its time. Fast forward two decades to the current era, where streaming series run 6-8 episodes max, many released in a “binge” format, and the conceit of a “real-time” thriller suddenly becomes much more practical. In the past few years, we’ve had Boiling Point, the BBC series set in a high-end kitchen during dinner service; Idris Elba dealing with a terrorist for the duration of his flight in Hijack; and, most memorably, Adolescence, the real-time school-set horror series.
In 2023, the BBC added another entry into the pantheon: Nightsleeper, where Joe Cole (The Ipcress File) does terrorism management overnight on a train. The series unfortunately never nabbed an American distributor, despite being a ratings smash. Now, the BBC has announced Nightsleeper will return for a second season, turning it into an anthology series in which the latest real-time crisis takes place on a boat.
Here’s the synopsis for the anthology series’ second outing:
The brand-new six-part series moves the action from the rails to open water, as a Belfast-to-Liverpool passenger ferry becomes the target of a potentially deadly hack-attack. With the crew desperately trying to hide the extent of the threat from the passengers, the ferry’s second engineer Johnny must work with the National Cyber Security Centre’s new technical director, Bo, to try and fight back. But as the tide turns, secrets surface and fear floods the decks; it isn’t long before those on land are all at sea too…
Colin Morgan (Trying) stars as Stephen Bowen; Madeleine Mantock (The Long Song) is Beth; Rupert Penry-Jones (Marble Hall Murders) is Richard; Ian McElhinney (Derry Girls) is Charlie; Sally Lindsay (The Madame Blanc Mysteries) is Lisa; and Christian Cooke (Frauds) plays Johnny. They join Parth Thakerar (Gangs of London), Jonjo O’Neill (Bad Sisters), and Micah Balfour (The Gold), who reprise their roles from Season 1 as Saj, Hud, and Leon, respectively.
Season 2 also adds Alexander Arnold (Pistol), Lydia Page (The Confessions of Frannie Langton), Christine Bottomley (Sherwood), Julie Dray (Ludwig), Pooky Quesnel (Tip Toe), Jonathan Harden (Blue Lights), Kevin Harvey (Time), Cúán Hosty-Blaney (Say Nothing), Eileen O’Higgins (The Irregulars), Samuel Edward-Cook (Peaky Blinders), Emily Flain (How to Get to Heaven from Belfast), Tareq Al-Jeddal (Ridley), and Sam Hoare (The Capture).
Series creator Nick Leather returns to pen all episodes of Season 2; directors James Kent (The White Queen) and Chris Baugh (Wreck) split helming duties with Jonathan Curling and Maria Mulhall as producers. Kate Harwood, Rachel Dargavel, Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, and Christopher Aird executive produce for Element Pictures alongside Leather and Kent, with Gaynor Holmes executive producing for the BBC.
Nightsleeper Season 2 is expected to debut on the BBC in 2027. Both Seasons 1 and 2 need an American distributor, please and thank you.
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