‘The Magicians’ Current 5th Season Will Be The Last
The magic has run out for ‘The Magicians‘ as Syfy US announce the current 5th Season will be the last. Whilst the show didn’t know for sure this would be the final season going into it, the final episode was written in a way which could serve as a series finale if required… which it now is.
Based upon Lev Grossman’s best-selling books, ‘The Magicians’ stars Jason Ralph (‘A Most Violent Year,’ ‘Aquarius’) as Quentin Coldwater, a brilliant grad student who enrols in Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, a secret upstate New York university specializing in magic. He and his 20-something friends soon discover that the magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real – and poses a grave danger to humanity. Stella Maeve (‘Chicago P.D.’), Hale Appleman (‘Teeth’), Arjun Gupta (‘Nurse Jackie’) and Summer Bishil (‘Towelhead,’ ‘Lucky 7’) also star.
The series was created by John McNamara and Sera Gamble who served as showrunners and exec producers. Exec producer Henry Alonso Myers joined them as co-showrunner in Season 5.
“The Magicians has been a part of our Syfy family for five fantastic seasons,” Syfy commented in a statement. “As we near the end of this journey, we want to thank John McNamara, Sera Gamble, Henry Alonso Myers, Lev Grossman, and our entire brilliant cast, crew, writers and directors for their beautiful creation. But most of all, we thank the fans for their tremendous support and passion. Because of you, magic will be in our hearts forever.”
As usually happens with Syfy series, it was a battle of ratings vs cost. Whilst the show’s ratings are too bad for a show in its 5th Season on the network, averaging 881,000 Live+7 total viewers, that is half the viewers compared to the first couple of seasons. Couple that with the rising cost of a drama in its 5th Season, as increased actor/staff pay, and it being an SFX-heavy show, the network opted not to move forward with a 6th Season.
In the UK, ‘The Magicians‘ has been off regular broadcast tv since 5Star dropped the show after Season 3. Amazon Prime did broadcast Season 4 back in Autumn 2019, and Season 5 is expected to premiere on there later this year. The finale episode will air on Syfy US in April 2020.
