Amazon renewed sci-fi fan favorite The Peripheral for a second season.

Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and even Reddit reported on it so it must be true.

The show is listed as “based on the William Gibson novel” where in truth the more appropriate label would be “inspired by the William Gibson novel”.  The producer Vincenzo Natali is unquestionably passionate about Gibson’s cannon and moving his work from page to screen, however, there are great alterations and liberties taken with this series. Further, Gibson himself was unavailable during the production of the series.

This does not detract from the quality and thoughtfulness of the show. Much of the Gibson fanbase has given their approval but by no means is it universal. See Cormac McCarthy’s fanbase response to the Coen Bros’ No County for Old Men for that.

Following the Reddit sites devoted to Gibson or Television or The Peripheral the mix of favorable and unfavorable appears to be roughly evenly mixed – and that includes fans who say the show is too simplified (dumbed down) and those who say the show is too difficult to understand. In both cases many on both sides are excited for the announcement for Season 2.  This seems to be the magical ratio and Vincenzo Natali walked the Amazon tightrope (with the backing of Nolan & Joy) across the cancellation abyss and onward to renewal – no small feat!

One of the many changes Natali made was to make the series more action oriented than the Gibson novel. As with Chekov’s Gun many of the characters are primed for action and it is expected that (as per usual with Gibson’s books) action will occur, it takes much of the novel and is sometimes written in the abstract. Simply put, Gibson is not an action writer and no one expects him to be. Gibson has that freedom – Natali does not.

To translate Gibson’s work demands a level of production to tell the story properly. Simply put – The Peripheral series is a high budget, high dollar, high risk series. For Amazon to sign that big dollar check requires eyeballs and clicks and views, repeated views even. To make the show impenetrable to the casual sci-fi fan and available to only the most die hard lit crit sci fi Dandy is a guaranteed cancel. In general this type will only love a project only if everyone else is put off by it. And what’s the point of that?

There is no point.

As for Gibson himself, he let it be known he enjoys the show and has already retweeted out the series renewal notice –

From Twitter:

William Gibson
@GreatDismal
I wouldn’t ordinarily ask, but if those of you Liking the news of #ThePeripheral Season 2 were to also RT it, I’d appreciate it (however abashedly)!

Who could ask for anything more.

No release date on when The Peripheral Season 2 will arrive on Amazon.