Mamoudou Athie getting off a helicopter

It's one thing to cancel a TV show. Canceling a TV show in the middle of a big cliffhanger is something else. We asked Mamoudou Athie, the star of the show, what would have happened next.

He plays the head of communications for a company called Biosyn in the final film in the series, which will be released on June 10. He recalled seeing those characters and the first film when he was a child.

He said that it was a special experience to watch the movie in his parents basement. I was already a huge dinosaur nerd when I fell in love. I thought they were some of the cool characters.

The experience of seeing magic in a basement is similar to that of Athie's character in Archive 81, Dan Turner. He is hired for a lucrative job that involves traveling to a remote location to restore a stack of fire-damaged videotapes. It's a job that's perfectly suited to his talents, until he becomes drawn into the time- and dimensions-spanning mystery that emerges from those tapes. The first season ended on a wild cliffhanger, along with Athie's reaction.

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Dan was stuck in the past at the end of Archive 81. The original subject of the videotapes was after the fire. Can you imagine? Is that the end of your story? I cared about that character. I got really attached to that character, Dan Turner, despite the intense shoot. It was a very special experience.

He said that Dan would eventually find his way home. The show's initial conceit surrounding the mysterious videotapes would no longer have been a factor if Dan had returned.

Unfortunately, not that we will ever see. Next month you can see Mamoudou Athie in a movie with Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, and Laura Dern.

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