I have always thought that movies got renewed immediately after their first season was a hit with viewership, and when you do not get to see the movie after 3 years, you should give up all hope of that movie coming back for a new season. Well, this is not the case for The Night Manager starring Tom Hiddleston.
The series is based on a novel by John le Carré centered on Jonathan Pine, an ex-soldier now turned Hotel manager. During his time at a hotel in Switzerland, he had an encounter with a beautiful guest who had ties to some pretty bad people, and this led her to share confidential documents with Jonathan. In an attempt help her escape, Jonathan gets enroped into the shady arms dealing that is going down, but sadly, there is nothing much he can do for the beautiful lady. Moments later, she was found dead in her hotel room.
This serves as the genesis of Jonathan Pine having Mr. Roper as an enemy, the renowned, wealthy businessman, whom the British police and even MI6 have been unable to pin down for his business dealings, except for their suspicions. The movie is well polished with lots of Queen's English as it happens to be a British series, and I admire how the plot was slowly built to achieve a desired effect of carrying the viewers along with the story. No stone was left unturned as everything began to unfold gradually, one scene at a time. It did not stop me from watching, as I am used to series like this where the storyline requires a couple of episodes to build an actual understanding of all that is going on. I am used to it.
Let us move over to the part I truly enjoyed while watching the first season. It was the building of a criminal profile for Jonathan Pine by the British investigation team looking into Mr. Roper's business dealings and how to pin him down for the crimes he had committed. Jonathan Pine got involved with the British investigation team due to his quest for revenge for what happened to his female guest in Switzerland. He goes undercover to get an understanding of Mr. Roper's empire and how it works.
The tricky part for me was when I googled the series to find out more about it, like I love to do with any series I am watching. Surprisingly to me, I discovered that the series was released about 10 years ago, which is quite a long time. That is in 2016 is when the first season came out and now they are bringing out the second season in 2026. Wow, that is a lot of years and a lot of things, or even movies could have become popular and even crashed. This is questioning if you ask me. Why did it take this long before the second season came out, and does that mean it would take another 10 years before the third season is released? That is, if there will be another season.
To watch series these days is a tricky game. You never can tell what will happen with the series, and what happens when they do not bring out another season after you have fallen in love with the series? This is like what happened to me with Netflix's The Recruit. I enjoyed that series more compared to The Night Agent. Still, Netflix did not renew them for a third season simply because they did not meet certain viewership numbers compared to The Night Agent, but forgetting that both series were released within the same space, which was not far from one another, and yet The Night Agent was already a big hit right from the first season. Although The Recruit was also a hit with its viewership in the first season but not as much compared to The Night Agent. Yet they used viewership expectations for The Night Agent on The Recruit. That is the movie business for you.
Well, here is my rating for the Night Manager:
Rating - 7.5/10
