For anyone unfamiliar, The Librarians franchise started as a trio of Noah Wyle TV movies back in 2004, expanded into a beloved four-season TNT series from 2014 to 2018, and returned last year as a spinoff called The Librarians: The Next Chapter, developed by original showrunner Dean Devlin. The premise centers on the Library, a secret organization that protects the world from dangerous magical artifacts. The new series follows Vikram Chamberlain, a Victorian-era Librarian from 1847 who gets stuck in a time bubble and accidentally wakes up in present-day Serbia, releasing magic across the continent in the process. He’s handed a brand-new team of Librarians to help clean up the mess he made.
Devlin posted the full announcement on the show’s Season 2 finale:
“Tonight, the two-part season finale of The Librarians: The Next Chapter begins. 9pm on TNT — and it concludes TOMORROW night. Two nights, one giant finale. The most ambitious finale we’ve ever attempted. And I couldn’t be more proud. We’re pulling out all the stops: Dominic returns, and the one and only Josh Gates joins the adventure. A real-life explorer walking into the Library — you don’t want to miss what he finds there. Forgive me a proud-producer moment before we go: this season, the audience GREW. The reviews are the best of the franchise’s run, episode scores on IMDb are up a full point over last season, and the franchise is sitting at 89% from critics and 87% from fans on Rotten Tomatoes. Eleven years in, and the magic has never been stronger. That’s not me. That’s YOU. Every week you showed up, streamed, posted, and brought new people into the Library. So bring everyone tonight. 9pm ET on TNT. Part one of two. The Library is open.”
An 89% critic score and 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience that actually grew this season rather than shrank, isn’t nothing for a franchise now eleven years removed from its original run, and genuinely rare for a legacy revival to pull off at all. Josh Gates joining as a real-life explorer stepping into a fictional Library is a fun crossover beat too, given his own background hosting Expedition Unknown and Destination Truth.
Did anyone catch part one? What’d you think?
Six books. One unforgettable world. The Adventures of Baron Von Monocle is steampunk adventure with the kind of worldbuilding and heart that made you fall in love with fantasy in the first place. Start the series on Amazon.
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