The eerie and visually stunning Australian series Picnic at Hanging Rock will air its final episode on the BBC tonight, having aired earlier in the year on Australia’s Showcase on Foxtel. However, fans already want to know if there is a Season 2 in the works.
The Picnic at Hanging Rock TV series is based on a popular Australian book written by Joan Lindsay and first published in 1967. It has been a staple of Australian literature ever since, telling the strange story of several girls who go missing while on a school excursion to Hanging Rock in Victoria, Australia. Set in 1900, a school excursion sees a group of girls take a trip to Hanging Rock on Valentine’s Day. By day’s end, three students and one teacher are missing. A fourth student returns to the group hysterical and unclear on what transpired.
Since the book’s publication, with an ending that is left very much open as to what really happened, people have been wondering if the author based the story on a real event.
It helped that the foreword to the novel was written in such a way to imply the story may have been based on real events.
“Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important.”
The television series followed this story fairly closely and managed to draw in the Victorian feel of the story and dreamlike sequences. However, is it possible the series could be renewed for a second season?
According to the Express , Picnic at Hanging Rock premiered in March in Australia and then aired in the U.K. starting in July. It has also been “acquired by Canal+ in France, RTE in Ireland, Amazon Video in the US and by ERT in Greece.”
While there is no official news yet from the network that developed Picnic at Hanging Rock , as the Express points out, if the viewership numbers are large enough, it could pave the way for a second series, which would take the characters beyond what occurred within the pages of Joan Lindsay’s book.
Bustle has also reached out to the BBC in relation to whether Picnic at Hanging Rock will return for a second season, but the network has not yet responded. So, it seems fans of the Australian series will just have to wait for an official announcement sometime in the future.
