![Breakout ... Alison Tolman in the first series of Fargo. Breakout ... Alison Tolman in the first series of Fargo.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/9a0b64ab-3c19-4e40-9430-23f515fdf7c2.jpg/r0_0_729_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The second season of the critically acclaimed US drama series Fargo will feature a new setting, and a new cast.
The series, which starred Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton, has drawn wide acclaim since its debut, and is a contender for outstanding miniseries at the upcoming Emmy Awards.
In Australia, it screens on the SBS channel.
The show's executive producer Noah Hawley confirmed to US media this week that it would return for a second season, but with an entirely new setting, characters and crime story, though they will be connected to the show's established world.
The second season will take place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1979.
"If you were paying attention to [the first season] we made a lot of references to Sioux Falls," Hawley said.
It will focus on the character of Lou Solverson, played in the first season by Keith Carradine, though in 1979 he will be just 33 years old and newly returned from the Vietnam War.
Solverson was the father of one of Fargo's first season main characters, police deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman).
Tolman, who was relatively unknown prior to Fargo, was one of the breakout stars of the series.
Hawley said while it was an appealing thought to maintain focus on Molly and Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks), he felt it would be "disingenuous".
He also rejected the thought of casting Tolman in the role of her character's mother, or indeed using any of the show's first season cast.
Hawley said using the cast in that way as repertory players belonged to producer Ryan Murphy, who does it with his anthology series, American Horror Story.
"He owns it. It would be imitative," Hawley said.
Hawley said 1979 offered a rich landscape for the second season.
"That time period is interesting, post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, the best of America versus worst," he said. "That sense, I think, that this war had come home with people, and the violence and brutality of it."
The second season will run to 10 one-hour episodes.
The series scored an extraordinary 18 nominations at the upcoming Emmy Awards, the most for a single program in the history of the FX cable channel.