Popular historical drama series Underground has been acquired by Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network and will be returning to our television screens next month.
Underground was canceled by WGN after just two seasons — despite winning several awards.
The logline: In 1857, a restless slave named Noah (Hodge) organizes a small team of fellow slaves on the Macon plantation outside Atlanta and puts together a plan to run for their lives — 600 dangerous miles North — to freedom. The odds of success are slim; the path to freedom’s terrain is unforgiving, and Tom, their politically ambitious owner will surely kill anyone attempting to run. For those who make it off the plantation, the risks and uncertainties multiply. They leave family behind to pay for their sins, as they face danger and death at every turn. They’re aided along the way by an abolitionist couple in Ohio, new to running a station on the Underground, unprepared for the havoc it will wreak with their personal lives, while they evade a ruthless slave catcher hell-bent on bringing them back, dead or alive.
The series was created by Misha Green (Lovecraft Country) and Joe Pokaski (Cloak & Dagger) and stars Aldis Hodge, “Lovecraft Country’s” Jurnee Smollett and Christopher Meloni, best known for playing Detective Elliott Stabler in “Law & Order: SVU”
The series was named Best TV Show by the African American Film Critics Association. The show also received four NAACP Image Award nominations and was nominated as Outstanding New Program by the Television Critics Association.
