Netflix is going back to class.
The streaming giant has renewed Dear White People for a second season. Production on a new crop of 10 episodes will begin later this year for a return in 2018.
Series creator and showrunner Justin Simien made the announcement Friday at the Essence Festival.
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Starring Logan Browning, Brandon P. Bell, Antoinette Robertson, DeRon Horton, John Patrick Amedori, Ashley Blaine Featherson and Marque Richardson, the Lionsgate Television comedy is based on Simien’s 2014 crowdfunded movie. Yvette Lee Bowser will return as showrunner alongside exec producers Stephanie Allain and Julia Lebedev.
Like the film, the Netflix comedy follows a diverse group of students of color as they navigate a predominantly white Ivy League college where racial tensions are often swept under the rug. The series is a send-up of “post-racial” America that also weaves a universal story about forging one’s own unique path.
The renewal comes after Simien expressed optimism at exploring the aftermath of the events of the season one finale, which featured a rising protest after a security guard pulled a gun on an unarmed black student at a house party. “There are a lot of things that we planted in this first season that you may not even notice at first glance that culminate in that moment that I’m really excited to explore, and I’m not going to talk about until I actually get to do it,” he told THR after the show’s April 28 launch. He also hoped to additionally explore the inner lives of the students at the center of the series.
, in a lot of ways, like this country, has to deal with the fact that there is an issue here,” Justin Simien tells THR.”]
While Netflix, like other streamers, does not release viewership data, Dear White People has garnered impressive reviews — it has a perfect 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and 85 on MetaCritic. THR critic Michael Rechtshaffen declared that the series was “every bit as sharply witty — and more focused — than the 2014 feature.”
Dear White People joins a roster of originals at Netflix including Orange Is the New Black — also from Lionsgate TV — as well as half-hours Love, Flaked, The Ranch, One Day at a Time and more.
