Sky has ordered a second season of “Under Salt Marsh,” bringing Rafe Spall back as Detective Eric Bull for a crime drama that became the broadcaster’s biggest launch of the year. The renewal, announced Wednesday, sends Bull to a new setting entirely: a remote Scottish mining village replacing the storm-battered Welsh coastal town where the first season unfolded.
The six-episode season picks up after the events of season one, with Bull relocating to a community the show’s synopsis describes as sinking under the weight of its own secrets. A murder investigation there pulls him closer to unresolved questions about his own past. Filming begins in Scotland in 2027.
Season one, which premiered in January and starred Kelly Reilly alongside Spall, centered on the death of an eight-year-old student in the fictional Welsh town of Morfa Halen, a case that reopened a three-year-old cold one tied to Reilly’s character. The season drew a consolidated 28-day audience of 2.5 million, making it Sky’s biggest entertainment title of the year and its strongest drama debut since “The Day of the Jackal.”
Claire Oakley, who created, wrote and directed the first season, returns to lead season two, writing this time alongside In-Sook Chappell, Jonathan Harbottle and Scott Graham. Little Door Productions again produces in association with Sky Studios, with Elwen Rowlands, Oakley and Sky’s Megan Spanjian serving as executive producers and Zoranna Piggott as series producer.
Oakley said returning to Bull’s story let her explore another distinct corner of the U.K. while carrying forward the character work Spall established in the first run. Meghan Lyvers, Sky’s managing director of scripted originals, credited the show’s sense of place and Spall’s performance for the audience connection, calling the decision to bring him back for a new mystery an easy one.
The second season will launch on Sky and streaming service Now across the U.K., Ireland and Italy, following the same distribution pattern that carried the first season to its breakout numbers.
