'Sherwood' Season 2 Introduces a New Sheriff of Nottingham

The BBC has finally released the first images for the second season of Sherwood. The series may sound like a period piece about Robin Hood, but the 2022 critical darling was anything but. It presented itself as a true-crime mystery based on a pair of murders that occurred in the famed forest in 2004 that wound up creating the largest manhunt in U.K. history at the time. It was a series about the long-running fallout of Margaret Thatcher's famous breaking of the miner's strike and the Tory government's decades-long "Spy Cops" program.

The first season was initially meant as a limited series, an A-list cast doing a six-episode close-ended story about healing thirty years after the Red Wall town was initially bitterly divided by the collapse of the strike and the decades of poverty that followed. However, the series was so popular and the critical response so rapturous that the BBC decided to re-up Sherwood for a second season, with discussions of it turning into an anthology series, not unlike Showtrial, with the new season featuring an all-new story and cast.

However, that did not turn out to be the case. Instead, the new season is still set in the same town as Season 1, with seven returning cast members reprising their roles. It will once again center around the same family that was part of the miner's strike back in the 1980s, that was part of the Spy Cops scandal in the first season, and that will now be integral to the new drama.

Here's the Season 2 synopsis:

The second series further explores the powerful themes that made the first so resonant to audiences across the UK. Set in the present day, it introduces two new families that find themselves entangled with the Sparrows, entering a complex web of local gangs, old rivalries, revenge, and betrayal. Meanwhile, a newly appointed Sheriff of Nottingham is passionately fighting against a proposed new mine for the area, which brings the promise of much needed jobs and prosperity but also unwelcome reminders of the legacy that has mired the community for so long.

David Morrissey (The Long Shadow) and Lesley Manville (Magpie Murders) return for Season 2 along with Lorraine Ashbourne (Bridgerton), Perry Fitzpatrick (Line of Duty), Philip Jackson (Raised by Wolves), Bill Jones (The Village), and Adam Hugill (1917).

Joining the Season 2 cast is an all-star lineup that includes Monica Dolan (Mr Bates vs the Post Office), David Harewood (The Night Manager), Robert Lindsay (Oliver Twist), Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones), Sharlene Whyte (Small Axe), Christine Bottomley (Domina), Aisling Loftus (War & Peace), Ria Zmitrowicz (The Power), Robert Emms (Andor), Michael Balogun (Top Boy), Oliver Huntingdon (Happy Valley), Jorden Myrie (Mood), Conor Deane (All Creatures Great & Small) and Bethany Asher (Wild Bill).

Series creator James Graham once again wrote all six episodes with Clio Barnard as lead director and Tom George splitting helming duties with Kate Ogborn producing. Graham and Barnard executive produce alongside Juliette Howell, Tessa Ross, and Harriet Spencer for House Productions, with Jo McClellan for the BBC. 

Sherwood Season 2 does not yet have a release date in the U.K., but is expected to air and stream on the BBC and Player in the latter half of 2024 and follow soon after on BritBox in the U.S.