Are You Afraid of the Dark? Season 2 Confirmed by Nickelodeon

Are You Afraid of the Dark? Season 2 has officially been submitted for the approval of The Midnight Society.

Nickelodeon‘s just-released slate for its 2020-2021 broadcasting year may have revealed some intriguing new arrivals – The Astronauts, Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan, Henry Danger spinoff Danger Force and SpongeBob SquarePants spinoff Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years – but it also confirmed that the cable channel’s 2019 revival of its 1990s generation-defining youth-aimed horror anthology series, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, will be making a return to the channel lineup, despite said revival’s original designation as a miniseries.

The confirmation of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Season 2, however, did not come with any substantive information about the series return or, for that matter, even the number of episodes that were ordered. Indeed, the latter aspect is a crucial question in the context of this renewal, since the first season manifested as a limited event series consisting of three episodes that aired weekly starting on October 11, 2019. The revival was – in a manner contrary to the weekly stories of the original series – formatted to accommodate a single ongoing story, in this case a tale told by Midnight Society newcomer Rachel (Lyliana Wray) about a carnival of horrors run by a ringmaster in the maniacal Mr. Tophat (Rafael Casal). In another aspect contrary to the original series, said tale turns out to be autobiographical on Rachel’s part, drawing the adolescent fireside chatters into danger.

Further Reading: Inside the Return of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Consequently, it will be interesting to see if Are You Afraid of the Dark’s second season will return as a similar single-story series spread across a handful of episodes, or if it will take its cue from the classic show and format itself as a weekly showcase of spine-tingling tales told by a repertory cast of Midnight Society members. The original iteration of the series, which ran for five seasons from 1990-1996, stuck to 13-episode frames; a format that was replicated in its previous revival series, which ran for two seasons from 1999-2000.

Of course, Are You Afraid of the Dark? won’t be the only classic Nickelodeon live-action franchise with a presence on the cable channel’s current lineup. That’s because last year saw the premiere of its reboot of classic kid’s sketch series All That, with an inaugural season that ran from June to November. Interestingly enough, the channel’s 2020-2021 slate revealed a 10-episode order for what will serve as a back-half for that show’s Season 1.

Regardless, fans new and old can look forward to more fearful fire-gazing and appropriately terrifying tales with The Midnight Society as a second season of Are You Afraid of the Dark? awaits them, likely sometime this fall.

Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.