SS-GB season 2: Will there be a second series? How was the ending different to the book?

Will SS-GB return for season 2?

Season one ended with several loose ends and the fates of the main characters unclear.

It was revealed that the plot to save the King was a trap designed to capture the Resistance.

Archer (Sam Riley) escaped from the Germans with the atomic bomb plans hidden in a cigar tube, now a wanted man, as Huth was executed.

Meanwhile Harry (James Cosmo) was left recovering in a barn after he was shot.

At the American embassy, Barbara Barga (Kate Bosworth) stormed out of the room where she was listening to casualty reports from the Bringle Sands attack, presumably off to search for Archer.

Fans called the finale “disappointing” and a “weak ending” to the alternative reality drama.

But will the BBC produce a follow-up and reveal what happens to Archer and Barbara?

Len Deighton never wrote a sequel to his 1978 Nazi thriller, so it seems unlikely that there will be any further instalments of SS-GB.

READ MORE: WHAT IS THE REAL HISTORY OF SS-GB?

However, it was recently announced that The Night Manager could return for a second season which would move the story past John Le Carre’s original novel.

Unlike The Night Manager – which attracted around 10 million viewers each week – SS-GB suffered from dwindling ratings and mixed reviews throughout its run.

Based on that, we’re not holding our breath for another trip to Nazi London.

How was the SS-GB ending different from the book?

In Deighton’s novel, Sylvia (Maeve Dermody) is killed when she tries to break out of detention with Harry.

Cruelly, her death is announced as an aside in the novel: “Harry was in a shooting incident this afternoon… the girl with him – Sylvia Manning, who used to be your clerk – is dead.”

In the BBC series, Sylvia survives the escape with just an arm wound, but is later shot alongside the King.

While Barbara survives the series, in the novel Archer finds her dead and “knocked about a bit” after the failed getaway.

In the TV version of events the Germans attack Barbara before the operation to free the King, but take her alive to be interrogated and terrorised by Kellerman (Rainer Bock).

WHERE WAS SS-GB FILMED?

The American journalist also fails to mention that she has a husband – who is featured in the novel and even becomes part of the King’s escape.

When Danny Barga meets Archer in the book, he quips: “Barb said I would like you, and dammit, I do,” but dies before the novel is over.

Archer’s fate is also changed. In the original he is arrested and imprisoned in Bringle Sands after the attack, but is let off the hook after Kellerman tells him that Huth (Lars Eidinger) was to blame for the whole plot.

It is also revealed that Harry has been Kellerman’s informant the whole time, telling him every move that Archer makes.

Huth tells Archer: “Don’t you realise that Harry Woods looks upon you as the son he never had?”