Alice Oseman, creator of the Heartstopper series, says the Netflix show may explore mental health issues in future seasons. (Netflix)
Heartstopper creator Alice Oseman has hinted there might be more seasons of the beloved series in the future which explore “darker issues”.
The uplifting LGBT+ drama explores the lives of main characters, Charlie and Nick (Joe Locke and Kit Conner), as they navigate school, love and heartbreak. The Netflix show has quickly become a fan-favourite for its utterly relatable characters and beautiful storyline.
The first season of Heartstopper only covers the first two volumes of graphic novels by Oseman, and there are seven volumes in total to the series. Oseman gave a few hints as to what fans could expect to see in future seasons in an interview with Digital Spy.
She explained that, should the show get future seasons, it will be exploring themes of mental health as “that’s something that’s really important in the books” as Charlie and Nick grow.
“The challenge of writing Heartstopper is exploring those darker issues while keeping the tone so optimistic and hopeful,” Oseman said. “That has been, like, the struggle of writing it for me the whole way through.”
Oseman said they’ve been able to be “very candid about mental health” in the books and explore it in a “real way” that is not “intensely triggering or really dark and horrible to read or watch”.
“So that is very much my goal for the show,” Oseman added.
The author also said fans can expect that the teachers will be more involved in future seasons as “we’ll be moving into volume three of the books”, when a “teacher romance happens”.
“So in the show, we’ve already got Mr Ajayi, but in the books there’s also Mr Farouk, who comes in, in volume three,” Oseman said. “And they have this kind of interesting friendship going on in the background that eventually becomes something more.”
Netflix hasn’t said anything about a follow-up to Heartstopper, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be in the cards. Fans are obsessed with the drama, and it’s received a rare 100 per cent score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.
Heartstopper executive producer Patrick Walters previously told PinkNews that the show’s cast and creators would “love a second season”. Walters added that Netflix has been an “amazing” partner to the series and said the streaming service “understand the world we’re trying to deliver”.
“Given there are more books in the series there’s more source material to adapt,” Walters said. “Alice and I are getting our thinking caps on and starting to think ahead now.”
Heartstopper is currently available to watch on Netflix.