North of North
Sometimes Netflix does the right thing when it comes to what it renews instead of cancels, and now a great new comedy series has been rewarded for being, well, great.
That would be North of North, the indigenous comedy series focused on life in the Arctic. The series arrived in the middle of the Netflix top 10 list, but quickly dropped off, raising some questions about its season 2 renewal. But just a few weeks after release, North of North has officially been renewed by Netflix in a rather quick pickup.
In the press release, Netflix extols the fact that it got a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, something you don’t see every day on this service especially. The show was Netflix’s first series commissioned from Canada and clearly that worked out quite well.
They published a quote from star Anna Lambe regarding the news:
“When I got the call from Alethea, Stacey and Miranda about North of North being renewed for a second season, my heart exploded in the best way possible! I’m so excited and overwhelmed with joy, I can’t wait to head back to Ice Cove!”
North of North
And here’s the official synopsis of the series from Netflix’s Tudum if you don’t already know what it’s about, as many of you may not:
“North of North follows Lambe’s portrayal of a young Inuk woman’s coming-of-age in her close-knit Arctic community of Ice Cove, Nunavut. Her whole world changes when she decides to build a new future for herself by making a very spontaneous — and extremely public — exit from her marriage. Over eight 30-minute episodes, Siaja steps outside of who she thought she was and into who she’s meant to be, but it’s not an easy road when everyone in town knows her business.”
Even if viewership was not exactly tearing up the charts, a renewal of the show seemed like a sure thing based on A) those critic scores and B) a much lower cost than probably almost all of Netflix’s original productions with an unknown (but talented) cast and no need for elaborate VFX like other series.
As for when season 2 may arrive, we don’t have any clues about that. Given the nature of production and how quickly it has been renewed, it could return in a year like TV shows used to. But it also may be pushed closer to a year and a half which is more or less the new baseline for series like this. We’ll see.
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