In and amongst the darkness of life’s doom, despair, chaos and anarchy there’s the occasional glimmer of hope in a sea of annoyances and that’s exactly what the prospect of Raised By Wolves Series 2 is. If you missed the first series it’s a genius new take on one-parent family life in the beautiful setting of a Wolverhampton council estate, with the two forming the basis of the dual meaning for the title, and it’s well worth checking out if you can.
While there’s no word as of yet for the exact air date of the second series, we do know that the Channel 4 commission will be produced by Big Talk once again with Caitlin and Caz Moran back behind the typewriter for the next round of Black Country mayhem. Another six 30-minute episodes have been announced and they’ll feature all of the characters that helped to make the unconventional British sitcom such a hit. With writing underway and filming planned for Autumn 2015, it will be 2016 before the transmission date arrives.
The story picks up from where things left off at the end of Series 1 and while there were a few key developments for the Garry family, not a great deal changed at the heart of things. Free thinking hard-ass mum Della managed to find herself a love interest, but that showed little sign of softening her resolve to rule the roost with a socialist iron fist, and uncontrollable teenager Germaine may have gotten closer than ever with local nonse Lee Rhind, but she’s still as viciously wanton as she’s ever been.
However, the end of the final episode did throw at least one unfinished curve ball into the equation as the home-schooled kids were greeted after a random night out at the Dorchester night club by their prodigal father, who returned to the Wolverhampton homestead. This will inevitably be the starting point for Series 2 and there will be a whole lot of speculation between now and the start of the first episode about who will be taking on the role and how long he’ll last this time around.
Rebekah Staton will be back as Della, along with Helen Monks as elder sister Germaine, Alexa Davies as ginger-haired second sister Aretha, and Philip Jackson as Gramps. Molly Risker stars as Yoko Garry and the babbies are played by Caden Ellis Hall as Wyatt and Erin Freeman as Mariah. Erin Kellyman plays cousin Cathy and Kaine Zajaz plays Lee Rhind, although there may be a little less space for him now that Germaine has discovered her inherent power over men.
The show is a modern day take on the life of writers Caitlin and Caz Moran, who also grew up on a council estate in Wolverhampton in a one parent family with no money and home schooling – check out the image above to see the then and now of Germaine and Aretha, which Caitlin tweeted recently. The writing duo are pretty glad to have landed a new series with Caz commenting, “I am mega-stoked we are putting the band back together. This is truly bostin’news. I have assembled the giant box of bananas, the fingerless gloves and the Mad Max: Fury Road soundtrack I will need to get me through the writing process and will now seal myself into the comedy creation bunker. Big up Channel 4!”
Raised By Wolves Series 2 will build on the incredible success of the first series, which turned out to be the surprise hit of the year with a whole lot of critical acclaim (not least of all from us – check out the Series 1 review for more details). It’s also gone on to be Channel 4’s second highest rated comedy of 2015 so far, picking up an average of 1.3 million viewers, so the second series will have a pretty significant fan following from the get go. For anyone that didn’t catch it the first time around, you may still be able to catch up on 4OD if you’re quick.
