Good News For 'The Man in the High Castle' Fans

Amazon's original series, based on a novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, has a revisionist history plot line makes for something both compelling and irrefutably appropriate for a 2017 audience. It might come as no surprise, then, that The Man in the High Castle has been renewed for Season 3. And with a new season comes new changes. The Man in the High Castle has enlisted Eric Overmyer as Season 3's showrunner.

The show rests on the premise of a dystopian, post World War II climate where Germany and Japan rule the Allied territories — meaning a large majority of the U.S. falls under fascist rule. As the second season of The Man in the High Castle underwent a hiccup halfway through — the hiccup being Frank Spotniz, the man who created the series, leaving — a new showrunner was necessary.

You might recognize the name Eric Overmyer from unprecedented cornerstones of television, like The Wire and The Affair. He served as a consulting producer and executive producer on those two groundbreaking series respectively. He also worked as a co-executive producer on the critically revered Boardwalk Empire and as executive producer on another highly regarded Amazon original, Bosch. Additionally, he co-created the Peabody Award winning post Hurricane Katrina drama, Treme. Though his presence won't overhaul the show entirely, Overmyer's past works sets a high bar for the fairly nascent series.

Via The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon Studios head of comedy Joe Lewis said,

As timely as ever, the exploration of characters at a dark point for humanity has provided incredible stories for two seasons. Eric and his team are doing an incredible job crafting stories about the inner lives of those who struggle to do good in a world that is not. We couldn’t be more excited to bring season three to customers in 2017.

Overmyer seems especially equipped to handle "stories about the inner lives of those who struggle to do good in a world that is not." Take for instance, The Wire, a truly revolutionary show backed by the moral ambiguity of its characters and their world.

Plus, there's his keen sense of realism. Though the elements that are the hardest to stomach in The Man in the High Castle — the concept of Adolf Hitler being alive, the ubiquitousness of Nazi imagery, etc. — make the show compelling, the suspension of disbelief can be a hurdle. Overmyer's past work will surely dictate some of the ways in which he handles The Man in the High Castle's believability. In other words, the alternate history show might get a healthy dose of verisimilitude, something that will only heighten its eeriness.

The show's first season set a record with Amazon and, along with Transparent, put Amazon's original streaming services right alongside those of its strongest competitor, Netflix. According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Man in the High Castle's second season premiered with the highest amount of viewers out of all of its original series. Furthermore, the show's first season remains the most watched Amazon original debut season.

With Overmyer on its side, the fate of The Man in the High Castle looks more promising than ever.