‘World on Fire’ Creator Peter Bowker on Shaking Up His War Drama in Season 2: ‘We Can Do So Much More’ Than Show the ‘White European Perspective’
Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International When “World on Fire” premiered on the BBC in September 2019, no one could have known that the World War II drama would be one of the last major scripted debuts on the public broadcaster before the pandemic. The PBS Masterpiece co-production — which follows the interconnected lives of British and European families during the outbreak of war — confirmed it would return at the end of its Season 1 finale, but the onset of the COVID-19 crisis just four months later and its impact on global production made the prospect of setting up a continent-spanning war drama all the more unlikely. Yet with some heroic scheduling, rewritten scripts and clever location and CGI combos, Season 2 returned to British screens on Sunday after a four-year hiatus, premiering to an audience indelibly changed by a global and life-altering event of their own.