NBC’s renewing Aquarius for a second season as just announced by NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke. The ’60s-set drama stars David Duchovny, Gethin Anthony, Claire Holt, Grey Damon, and Emma Dumont, and is written and executive produced by John McNamara (In Plain Sight). Duchovny, Melanie Greene, and Marty Adelstein also serve as executive producers.
“With its riveting drama and innovative release strategy, Aquarius has excited the critics, hooked millions of viewers and energized our summer. It’s no secret that the way people watch television is evolving, so we took a unique approach to how we delivered Aquarius and it’s driven some record numbers for NBC Digital and helped us reach viewers who might have otherwise overlooked a great summer drama,” said Salke.
According to NBC, Aquarius has been averaging 5.8 million viewers.
“Beyond generating some truly impressive view totals, the network’s unique release strategy with Aquarius has helped us gain new insights into viewership patterns, binging behavior, and social engagement, significantly expanding our knowledge of how people are watching our shows online,” said Robert Hayes, Executive Vice President of NBC Entertainment Digital.
The Aquarius Plot:
Sam Hodiak (Duchovny), a decorated World War II vet and homicide detective, barely recognizes the city he’s now policing. Long hair, cheap drugs, rising crime, protests, free love, police brutality, Black Power and the Vietnam War are radically remaking the world he and the Greatest Generation saved from fascism 20 years ago.
So when Emma Karn (Dumont), the 16-year-old daughter of an old girlfriend, goes missing in a sea of hippies and Hodiak agrees to find her, he faces only hostility, distrust and silence. He enlists the help of Brian Shafe (Damon) — a young, idealistic undercover vice cop who’s been allowed to grow his hair out — to infiltrate this new counterculture and find her.
The generational conflict between the two is immediate and heated, yet they’re both dedicated officers and soon realize the need to bring Emma home is more urgent than they foresaw. The immediacy arises because she has joined a small, but growing, band of drifters under the sway of a career criminal who now dreams of being a rock star: Charles Manson (Anthony).
Ringing with the unparalleled music of the era, Aquarius is a sprawling work of historical fiction that begins two years before the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders. It’s a shocking thriller, a nuanced character drama and, in the end, the story of how we became who we are today.
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