After a decade-long hiatus, The Night Manager has returned to television, and the spy thriller’s second season is already generating a buzz that few shows could hope to match. Premiering on the BBC on January 1, 2026, and set for international release on Prime Video on January 11, the new season picks up four years after the events of the first, thrusting Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine back into a world of espionage, betrayal, and high-stakes intrigue. The show, originally based on John le Carré’s 1993 novel, has pulled off a rare feat: delivering a follow-up so compelling that critics have awarded it a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes as of January 4, 2026, according to ComicBook.com and MovieWeb.
The first season, which aired in 2016, saw Pine—a former British soldier turned hotel night manager—going undercover to infiltrate the inner circle of arms dealer Richard Roper, played with chilling menace by Hugh Laurie. The six-episode run was widely acclaimed, earning Rotten Tomatoes scores of 91% from critics and 89% from audiences, and immediately left fans clamoring for more. For years, it seemed no sequel would materialize, as le Carré never penned a follow-up and the series was considered a self-contained gem. Then, in 2023, the BBC and Prime Video announced not just one, but two new seasons, bringing together returning stars Hiddleston and Olivia Colman, alongside a fresh ensemble including Camila Morrone, Diego Calva, Indira Varma, Paul Chahidi, and Hayley Squires.
Season two wastes no time reestablishing its world. Pine, now living under the alias Alex Goodwin, leads a small, scrappy MI6 unit called the “Night Owls.” Their task? Monitor London’s swankiest hotels for signs of illicit activity—think luxury penthouses, hidden deals, and the kind of nocturnal mischief that only the truly wealthy can afford. But Pine’s carefully controlled routine unravels quickly. The season opens with Pine and his former handler, Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), identifying the body of Richard Roper. The trauma of his past missions lingers, and Pine’s latest assignment soon takes him far from the relative safety of London.
The plot thickens when Pine is sent undercover to Colombia, tasked with infiltrating the operation of arms dealer Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva). To gain Dos Santos’s trust, Pine poses as a disgraced English banker seeking to launder ill-gotten gains. As he delves deeper into Dos Santos’s criminal empire, Pine encounters Roxana Bolanos (Camila Morrone), Dos Santos’s enigmatic partner, and finds himself entangled in a dangerous love triangle. The web of corruption and secrecy grows ever more tangled, and the stakes—both personal and political—could not be higher.
While the show’s globe-trotting sophistication and film-quality production values remain intact, some critics have noted a shift in tone. According to MicropsiaCine, the second season feels more conventional, even Bond-esque, as it trades some of the original’s unique flavor for broader espionage tropes and more glamorous set pieces. The Colombian backdrop, with its luxury hotels and sun-drenched mansions, provides a visually stunning stage, but the reliance on familiar Latin American trafficker stereotypes has drawn some criticism for lacking the dramatic richness of the first season’s British upper-class villains.
Despite these qualms, the consensus is that The Night Manager still stands head and shoulders above most contemporary spy dramas. As Nick Hilton of The Independent puts it: “Gripping without being excessively silly, compelling without being indulgently cerebral, The Night Manager pulls off the, increasingly rare, trick of knowing its audience, understanding its success, and replicating the formula.” Rebecca Nicholson echoes this sentiment, praising the show’s steadfast refusal to bow to fleeting trends: “This is simply a very good, very steady, old-fashioned thriller, with a fresh enough glance at its world to lure audiences in once more.”
David Opie of Digital Spy highlights the show’s successful expansion of le Carré’s world, noting, “Season 2 builds on the original story in ways you’d imagine (and hope) John le Carré would have approved of. Throw in some homoerotic sex appeal, plus more gorgeous locations, and you’ve got yourself a follow-up worth savouring.” Meanwhile, Christopher Stevens of the Daily Mail commends Hiddleston’s performance, observing the “new depths” the actor brings to Pine—a character now visibly weighed down by pain and doubt, conveyed with remarkable subtlety.
Yet, not all reviewers are entirely convinced. Some, like the critic at Ready Steady Cut, lament the loss of the show’s original identity, suggesting that the new season sometimes feels like an imitation or a “cover-band take” on familiar material. The plot, after all, is not drawn from a le Carré sequel, but rather crafted by new writers seeking to extend Pine’s saga. The result is a series that sometimes leans too heavily on genre conventions, with the MI6 “Night Owls” unit and their ramshackle headquarters drawing comparisons to Apple TV+’s Slow Horses.
Still, with Georgi Banks-Davies taking over as director from Susanne Bier, the series maintains its high production values and cinematic flair, even as it flirts with becoming a “greatest-hits remix” of glossier spy stories. The cast, both returning and new, delivers across the board, with Olivia Colman’s Angela Burr providing a brief but welcome appearance, and Hayley Squires’s Sally adding a dose of working-class wit to Pine’s team.
One thing is clear: the appetite for The Night Manager remains strong. The show’s perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, the effusive praise from critics, and the anticipation for its international streaming debut all suggest that fans old and new are eager for more. With a third season already in production, it seems Jonathan Pine may yet become a franchise figure to rival the likes of James Bond or Jack Ryan. Whether he’ll inspire the same affection—or laughs—as some of his contemporaries remains to be seen, but for now, The Night Manager has proven that some stories are worth the wait, even if they take a decade to return.
As the world tunes in to watch Pine navigate the shadows once more, the enduring appeal of le Carré’s universe—rooted in moral ambiguity, psychological complexity, and the ever-present tension between reality and fiction—remains as potent as ever.
