'Crimson Field' Has Some Seriously Passionate Fans

PBS' latest BBC import, The Crimson Field, will complete its first American season on Sunday, July 26. But, since the show already aired overseas in 2014, will The Crimson Field return for Season 2? The answer, unfortunately, is no. According to The Radio Times, the series was cancelled by BBC in 2014, when it initially aired. The news shocked everyone who watched the show.

Even creator Sarah Phelps was shocked by the cancellation. She wrote on Twitter after finding out the news that "gutted doesn't even touch the sides of how I feel." It must have been a huge disappointment, especially because The Crimson Field was the first of the BBC's series meant to mark the centennial of WWI. Star Oona Chaplin told The Radio Times that Phelps had a season of the show planned out for every year of the centennial, from 2014 through 2018.

The thoughtful show exposes the somewhat unknown story of volunteer nurses on the French front of World War I, most of them wealthy women who had never had to work before. And, those women are working alongside professional nurses, male doctors who underestimate them, and soldiers with grievous war injuries that need immediate medical attention.

Fans of the show have not taken the news of The Crimson Field's cancellation lightly, either. Many have dedicated social media campaigns and even online petitions pestering the BBC into bringing the show back for a second season. So far, the BBC has not agreed to un-cancel The Crimson Field, unfortunately. Successful fan campaigns usually need a bit more of a gimmick to be successful, but what Crimson Field has right now are a ton of passionate fans who just want to see more of their favorite show.

A lot of American shows have been picked up by streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, or Yahoo after a network cancellation. Maybe after the PBS run, some of those services will get a spark of interest in The Crimson Field. No news yet, but this show certainly deserves better than the unceremonious cancellation that took place last spring, and fans have agreed. Unfortunately, the production has been halted on The Crimson Field for so long that if it was able to return, it would be very unlikely to return in time for Phelps' planned multi-season (or series, in the British terminology) run. But maybe, just maybe, some unlikely combination of American entitlement, British endurance, and television luck could collaborate to get some more episodes of The Crimson Field Season 2 out there.

Image: Nick Wall, Todd Antony/BBC (2)