Staged Season 2 Explained: What’s Up With the Ending?

The first season of Staged was such a typical “remote series”. It talked about how director Simon Evans got actors Michael Sheen and David Tennant to remotely rehearse his production of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author at the West End theater – well, since the lockdown and all, let’s at least rehearse.

At the same time, Evans turned out to be a useless organizer, and at the moment when some decision needed to be made, Simon simply ran away, and the completely egregious fact was revealed that another actor was invited to the role of Michael and no one settled this issue with him – in in general, Michael and David had to sort out all sorts of problems.

Sheen and Tennant were filming in their own homes with their wives, acting like themselves, but it’s clear they were following a script – well-written, I’d say, a script written by Simon Evans and Fin Glynn (Glynn also appeared on the show in producer role).

The series turned out to be absolutely wonderful: bright, exciting, very funny dialogues, in which, as I understand it, Michael Sheen and David Tennant improvised a lot, excellent cameos of famous actors, among whom Samuel L Jackson and Judi Dench were especially good, and, of course, , the main charm of the series was given by the performers of the main roles, and here it was interestingly invented: Sheen and Tennant seemed to switch roles in comparison with their characters in Good Omens, where Tennant seemed to play the main violin, and Sheen had the role of a completely good-natured character. Here, Sheen played the main violin, and Tennant portrayed a shy and reflective person.

The first season received very high ratings, and it was immediately announced that at least a second season would be filmed. And I kept thinking: what are they going to invent for the second season, after all, they shouldn’t continue to rehearse the play?!

But they came up with a great move! In the second season, Michael Sheen and David Tennant find out that in America they are interested in this series and want to make a remake. Whom to play Michael Sheen and David Tennant, if not themselves, the actors decide and are already starting to pack their bags to fly to the States, but their American agent Mary (Whoopi Goldberg) stuns friends with the news that American directors want to replace them with others actors. Moreover, these may not necessarily be Americans, but the British, simply – well, you understand – are better known in the American market. Also, Mary explains, Americans have to believe that these actors are close friends. And the fact that you are real friends will not be believed in America.

Michael and David, of course, at first refuse to understand and accept this information, especially since, as it turned out, Simon Evans was invited to work on the remake script and he is already sitting in Los Angeles, but, let’s be honest, who will even ask them? The Americans bought the rights, and they are free to select any actors.

Of course, Shin and Tennant feel very offended. However, when Simon asks them to talk to the actors who are being planned for their roles (you know, to share experiences and all), they agree, because they have a cunning plan: to make sure that nothing happens with the new actors, and then the producers will be forced to call them to the production.

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As Bublik the cat quite rightly noted, the second season really turned out wonderful, no worse than the first. Simon Evans and Fin Glynn came up with a great idea with a new approach, Michael Sheen and David Tennant played it out great with all sorts of improvisations in their roles, and there are a lot more great actors making cameos in season 2 (check out the cast list).

Both Sheen and Tennant’s wives, Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant, got noticeably more screen time this season, and I can assure you they did a great job of it. Well, let’s not forget that both Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant (formerly Moffett) are professional actresses, so it’s no surprise that they played their roles great.

I don’t want to talk about the cameos of other actors so as not to spoil, but believe me – everyone was excellent there, but in my personal rating in the first place is the episode with the wonderful Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who smartly beat the fact that she starred with David Tennant Season 2 of Murder on the Beach.

That’s it, I won’t write anything more about this season, you just need to watch it.

However, in fairness, I should also note that this series has one very significant minus. It – VERY QUICKLY ENDS! It’s like they just started watching (my wife and I watched it in two days), and that’s it, the last episode, and you lose the opportunity to watch this wonderful couple picks again with each other and with other excellent actors. And this, I tell you, is very, very sorry!

Now the question is: where to get if you are not subscribed to the BBC One service, and you are very unlikely to be subscribed to it?

At first, when the series first appeared, they posted a version with an amateur polyphonic translation – with solid, of course, debility sports betting. Then came the second amateur polyphonic translation.

At the moment, a professional polyphonic translation from BaibaKo is already available (very good, but there are also ads, however, not too annoying), as well as the most correct version, in my opinion, with the original track and United Statesn / English subtitles.

The United Statesn subtitles were made by the PhysKids release group, for which many thanks to them, the subtitles are good, but, in my opinion, they still went too far with swear words, they could have been made a little thinner, because in the original it still sounds a little different. On the other hand, as the cat Bublik rightly noted, you think that it was necessary to translate in a different way – well, take it and translate it, criticize all the masters.

Staged – season 2 meaning

Director: Simon Evans Cast: David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Georgia Tennant, Anna Lundberg, Simon Evans, Whoopi Goldberg, Kate Blanchet, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Hugh Bonneville, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Michael Palin , Jim Parsons, Ken Jeong, Ben Schwartz, Christopher Waltz, Ramesh Ranganathan, Nina Sosanya

Series, UK, 2020, 22 min. 2 seasons, 8 episodes per season

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