All caught up on Amazon's excellent alt-history series The Man in the High Castle? Good, because the top-streaming show is officially due to return for a third season. If you're not caught up, don't worry; there's still time to check out the adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Hugo Award-winning novel that explored an America that had lost World War II and found itself occupied by both the Japanese Empire and Germany's Nazi Reich. The mysterious title figure is thought to have a key bit of information hidden away in a filmstrip that could help American citizens in their struggle against fear, oppression and inequality. But like everything else in The Man in the High Castle, nothing is what it seems on the surface.
The Man in the High Castle stars Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, Joel De La Fuente, Brennan Brown, Bella Heathcote, and Callum Keith Rennie, with Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Rufus Sewell. The series was developed by Frank Spotnitz, who exited the series after its first season. Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Richard Heus, Isa Dick Hackett, and Daniel Percival will serve as executive producers for Season 3, along with new showrunner Eric Overmyer (Treme, Bosch, The Affair).
Watch the announcement video below:
Not what you expected, was it? It seems that the drama series, which is not afraid to jump between alternate realities, is dipping back into an earlier time, at least in this teaser trailer for the now-official third season. It reveals a time when John Smith (Sewell) and his wife Helen (Chelah Horsdal) were expecting a child (presumably Thomas) and happened to be in the vicinity when the Nazis dropped the atomic bomb on Washington, D.C. (Perhaps causing Thomas' condition thanks to radiation?) We knew that Smith's character was a former U.S. military officer who joined the ranks of the Reich after America's defeat, but it's looking like we'll see more of that earlier side of him in the new season.
What's equally intriguing behind the scenes is the appointment of Overmyer as showrunner. Clearly capable, Overmyer steps in to fill a role that had been vacated by Spotnitz after Season 1 and which remained vacant throughout Season 2. Here's what Joe Lewis, Amazon Studios' Head of Comedy and Drama, had to say about the upcoming third season and Overmyer himself:
“As timely as ever, the exploration of characters at a dark point for humanity has provided incredible stories for two seasons. Eric and his team are doing an incredible job crafting stories about the inner lives of those who struggle to do good in a world that is not. We couldn’t be more excited to bring season three to customers in 2017.”
As Amazon informs us, Overmyer's writing and producing credits include St. Elsewhere, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, The Wire, New Amsterdam and Treme, which he created with David Simon, and adapting Amazon Original Series Bosch for television. He has four Writers Guild nominations, three Emmy nominations, two Edgar nominations and a Humanitas nomination. With his colleagues, he has shared a Writers Guild award and an Edgar award for The Wire, and a Peabody award and a PEN teleplay award for Treme.
