MTV Renews Shannara Chronicles

MTV announced this week that it's bring back The Shannara Chronicles for a second season. The fantasy series has been a relatively strong performer for the network, and although its ratings have not been high in a broader sense, the show has delivered the audience that MTV was aiming for.

The series is a swords-and-sorcery epic based on a series of novels by Terry Brooks, and its producing team includes Al Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville) and Jon Favreau (The Jungle Book). It stars Poppy Drayton, Invana Baquero, Austin Butler and Aaron Jakubenko as a group of heroes who must protect the world from the magical forces of evil.

The series is a clear attempt to take advantage of the popularity of other fantasy series such as Game of Thrones and Outlander, but the MTV series features a much younger cast than those other series and is targeted at a much younger audience. Through its first season, Shannara averaged about 900,000 total viewers per episode, which is a fraction of the total viewership of GoT at its peak, but Shannara consistently does well in delayed viewing and in the 12-34 age demographic.

Shannara debuted in January of 2016, and its first season consisted of 10 episodes. No season-two premiere date or season length have been announced by MTV yet.