The series, a reboot of the film's continuity, follows the passengers of the Snowpiercer, a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe carrying the remnants of humanity seven years after the world becomes a frozen wasteland.

Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs star alongside Mickey Sumner, Alison Wright, Iddo Goldberg, Susan Park, Katie McGuinness, Sam Otto, Sheila Vand, Mike O'Malley, Annalise Basso, Jaylin Fletcher, Lena Hall and Roberto Urbina.

The series remained in development hell until May 2019, when it was announced that it would instead air on TNT's sister network TBS in the second quarter of 2020 and that it had already been renewed for a second season.

[6][7] Snowpiercer is set in 2026, seven years after the world becomes a frozen wasteland due to ecocide, and follows the remnants of humanity who have taken shelter on a perpetually moving luxury train.

Since the catastrophe, the train's population has become rigidly separated by class, caught up in a revolutionary struggle against the strictly imposed social hierarchy and unbalanced allocation of limited resources.

With both sides unable to take the other train by force, a game of political intrigue plays out as Layton and Wilford fight for control over Snowpiercer.

Melanie discovers evidence that CW-7, the chemical that caused the Freeze, is breaking up in the atmosphere, suggesting that the planet is warming much sooner than expected and she leaves the train to perform research on her theory.

Although Layton's search proves to be mostly fruitless, he discovers a survivor named Asha and has a vision suggesting that the last warm spot in the Horn of Africa might be suitable to build a New Eden.

After a coma dream featuring a dystopian future for Snowpiercer, Layton realizes that his New Eden vision was a hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation and loses faith.

The rocket launch proves to be a trap and Snowpiercer is hijacked by soldiers from the International Peacekeeping Forces led by Admiral Anton Milius.

The train is brought to the Silo, a military bunker in Djibouti, where Doctor Nima Rousseau reveals to Melanie that his research team has developed a compound called Gemini that will cause CW-7 to break up and end the Freeze.

Melanie agrees to retrofit the train and work on the project, but Milius and the IPF turn Snowpiercer into a virtual labor camp for the passengers.

Nine months later, New Eden has become a thriving community led by Ruth Wardell, Layton having stepped down in favor of a democratically elected town council.

At the same time, the people of New Eden investigate a series of strange happenings, including the disappearance of Sam Roche, finding a severed hand in the hills and the Snowpiercer passenger it belongs to, ghostly voices heard by Oz in the mountains, and finally the revelation that the IPF has planted bombs to bury the town.

Nima takes control of Snowpiercer, ignoring Melanie's warnings that her data reveals that Gemini will cause atmospheric erosion and bring an end to all of the remaining life on the planet.

Although Nima realizes the error of his ways too late to stop the rocket launch, Alex's sabotage of Icebreaker prevents an apocalyptic disaster.

Afterwards, everyone decides to settle at New Eden, although it's unknown how long the warm spot will last for with data suggesting that it may not be viable forever due to the damage that Gemini did to the atmosphere while creating it.

Snowpiercer launches the first of their weather balloons and after a tense moment, Melanie makes contact, proving that she had survived her journey to the research station.

In an effort to defuse the situation, Layton offers to allow his arm to be frozen off, but Ruth stands up for him, urging people not to make the same mistakes she did; the approach of the Brakemen forces the rioters to retreat without further injury, but promising to exact more retribution later.

With the help of Oz, Till manages to track down one of the Breachmen's killers, a First Class passenger and realizes from her comments that Pastor Logan is the mastermind behind the attacks; he commits suicide after being confronted.

In November 2015, Marty Adelstein's Tomorrow Studios optioned the rights to develop a television series based on the 2013 film Snowpiercer.

The film's director Bong Joon-ho was attached as an executive producer alongside Adelstein and Josh Friedman, with the latter also set to write.

[85] According to Manson, nearly nothing of the original pilot's footage was used outside of one special-effect scene, and this reshooting was the primary cause for the year-long delay in the show's premiere.

The story takes place seven years after a climate catastrophe rendered the outside world uninhabitable, forcing the remnants of humanity to live confined inside of a massive train that constantly circles the globe.

[94] At the 2017 Television Critics Association press tour, TNT and TBS president Kevin Reilly revealed that the Snowpiercer series would be akin to a "space ship show" due to its contained setting and that it would feature a mystery during the first season.

[18][24] Casting for a number of recurring roles were also announced during the month of August, including Steven Ogg as Pike, Timothy V. Murphy as Commander Grey, Happy Anderson as Klimpt, Jonathan Lloyd Walker as Big John, and Aleks Paunovic as Bojan Boscovic.

[101][102] Reshoots for the pilot, overseen by new director James Hawes, began on August 20, 2018, in Vancouver, British Columbia and concluded on January 24, 2019.

Construction on each of the cars with contrasting classes took less than six weeks and was met with approval from series producer and film director Bong Joon-ho.

[7] Cast members Connelly, Diggs, Wright, Sumner, Hall, and Ogg attended the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con along with executive producers Manson, Adelstein, and Clements to promote the series and debut its first official trailer.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Snowpiercer takes a different route with its source material, crafting an ambitious sci-fi mystery with style to spare, but with little of the subversive bite of Bong Joon-ho's theatrical adaptation.