Supernatural Season 7? Maybe ... And general CW spoilers

[OmahaStar]

I had the opportunity to speak at length with one of the executives of the location CW affiliate tonight, and I asked if there was any news or spoilers they could share about the series finale of Supernatural.

"There are," this person said. "But it may not be the series finale after all."

The two leads are contracted through the end of this year. They have agreed to a one-year contract extension, provided that the original team of writers (whoever they have on board this season) continues for that one final season. It would also be written into the contract extensions that this would be it, May 2012 would be the series finale. The writers as a group haven't decided whether or not to come back, so the CW is offering a pile of cash for each of them.

If the writers say yes, it'll have one final season (not like this final season, or last year's final season, apparently), with the goal to wrap up the series.

Smallville, on the other hand, is done. Tom Welling agreed to come back for this season so it would be double digits, and because they backed the money truck up to his door. He's been wanting to leave for the last three years (I was told), and with the success of his other series Hellcats, he's no longer in a position where he would have to continue as an actor. He may have as many as three new series on the air by this time next year, all being executive produced by him, with the possibility of being a director too.

I dunno about that last bit, though. I suffered through a few minutes of Hellcats, just because I generally like Ashley Tisdale, and couldn't stand this series. Is it really doing well? Or is that more "doing well for a network that averages three viewers on a good night?"

So what do you think? Would you want yet another "final" season of Supernatural? Or should it be staked in May?

 

[Jetfire]

I like Hellcats. I am not sure the switch from Wed to Tues was a good idea.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Go for the seventh and then stop.

Fewer seasons for me to have to catch up on, thankfully.

 

[startrekwatcher]

It should have ended last season. This season hasn't been very good and has the taint of a series overstaying its welcome. A seventh season is a bad idea but knowing that the CW is desperate--this is the same network who drove Smallville into the ground and brought back 7th Heaven afterall--they'll bring it back.

 

[Skywalker]

This doesn't surprise me. At first I was dreading the idea of continuing the series beyond its planned ending, but for the most part Season Six has been a pleasant surprise for me, so as long as the actors, writers, and the rest of the crew are all in, I wouldn't mind one more season.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Mmmm, not quite sure how I fell about this, although I think I'm actually gonna have to agree with startrekwatcher here and say that this show has gone off the rails a bit. This whole new big bad they just unearthed, feels a little uninspired (Very Buffy season 7, First Evil-ish, plus you can substitute the Dragons as The Harbingers or later the Turrikons). We'll see how the rest of seasons pans out, but I don't know about a season 7. I just don't know.

 

[hamudm]

I dunno about that last bit, though. I suffered through a few minutes of Hellcats, just because I generally like Ashley Tisdale, and couldn't stand this series. Is it really doing well? Or is that more "doing well for a network that averages three viewers on a good night?"

Yes, Ashley Tisdale looks mighty fine

 

[bigdaddy]

Why would a CW affiliate know all of this? Why would an affiliate even need to know?

There was never a doubt that cW wants a 7th season of Supernatural, the president even said she would like to.

 

[OmahaStar]

Why would a CW affiliate know all of this? Why would an affiliate even need to know?

There was never a doubt that cW wants a 7th season of Supernatural, the president even said she would like to.

They had a call with affiliates either earlier this week or late last week (wasn't specified when).

 

[Joe Washington]

I would have been fine with Season Five being the end of the series but since that isn't the case, I'm torn between Season Six being the final season and Season Seven being the final season. S6 should work as the final season if they work on the final episodes of this season with the purpose of wrapping up the series' story. But I also think S7 should be the last because though I love Season Six, I just feel that this season could serve as Part One of a two-part wrap-up to the overall series with S7 in the place of being the climax of that wrap-up.

I just wish they make up their mind on this issue sooner rather than later to give us the viewers time to prepare for S6 being the end or S7.

 

[mswood]

THis is funny

Tom Welling agreed to come back for this season so it would be double digits, and because they backed the money truck up to his door. He's been wanting to leave for the last three years (I was told), and with the success of his other series Hellcats, he's no longer in a position where he would have to continue as an actor.

OK, let me make this very clear Mr. Welling (unless he is doing more coke then Charlie Sheen) doesn't need another revenue source from anything to retire extremely comfortably for the rest of his natural life.

His salary for just this year will end up being 5.775 million dollars. Since season 6 he has made significantly larger amounts of money. And could have retired at the end of season 5 and been quite comfortable. He also gets cuts for off net reruns, overseas airings, percentage of DVD and BLu-Ray sales all based on his base salary of that specific year. He needs Hellcats about as much as I need another cheeseburger.

 

[mswood]

Thats always been the problem with TV shows, is that writers often don't get much lead time in being able to plan out their shows. And this is something that they have to deal with from literally day one.

But so far I like this season better then last (though we still don't have a single Great episode like Abandon All Hope, but we also don't have the clunkers from the first half of last year either.

But put it this way last week's episode was the same week we got Swap Meet.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Swap Meat was a terrible episode. I agree; I like this season so far as a whole much better than season 5.

 

[mswood]

Seriously besides the season opener, I think I have liked every episode. The only two problems I have had with this season is I missed the bond between the actors, as that clearly wasn't there (and for very good reason), and I don't feel they have hit a home run yet. There have been episodes that almost got there, but not quite.

For all my complaints about several episodes in season 5 by this point they had two episodes that I think were great.

 

[Joe Washington]

Maybe Season Six should be the end of the series because I'm noticing how we are retreading on certain old issues and patterns between Sam and Dean that Season Five was resolving by its end. Like Dean treating Sam like a kid and becoming his brother's keeper. We need to move on from that and as long as this season remains just another season and not the final season, that whole thing will remain in a stubborn holding pattern or worse a monstrous decline, or the writers will stir up some artificial drama to keep up the brotherly tension. Making Season Six the final season will allow them to take risks and freedoms with the storytelling and the characters, the likes they've never took before because it wasn't that time yet the way Joss Whedon did in Season Five of Angel once it was confirmed that the series was cancelled.

 

[mswood]

The problem with that is Joss knew the writing was on the wall extremely early in Angel's 5th season.

Currently the writer are working on what episode 18 & 19. That leaves three real episodes to plan closure for a series. That leaves very little time to "take risks". Since the actors only took a one year extension, I think it would be easier to use that (or if they had been told early in planning for season 6 that it would be its last). But once the ratings came in, thats was pretty much not going to happen.

As for the character beats, yeah they do repeat, but thats human nature. And I don't think Dean had ever gotten to the point where he wouldn't try and take care of his brother. He might treat him more like an adult able to make his own informed choices. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't try and shield him still from the worst of the things, or protect him from things that he truly doesn't understand.

I mean Dean right now is trying to shelter him from his own Hell experience. Something Sam doesn't have any memory of. Dean has his own experiences which weren't as bad, and knows what that can do to some one. Sam can't make an informed choice on that issue, as he has his memories wiped. And until he has the memories that can even match the 40 years that Dean went through, he can't accurately assess the situation.