Both good news and bad news popped on the radar last night. For the good, How I Met Your Mother was renewed for a ninth season! Jason Segel had decided to not to do another season, but at the last moment he changed his mind. I’m kind of hoping the show reveals the mother at the end of this season, and we get to see her and Ted’s relationship in the ninth season, but who knows what the show’s creators have up their sleeves?
Sad news for Leverage fans, though – the show has been canceled, and Christmas Day’s season five finale will be the series finale. Executive producer Dean Devlin had stated that they “decided to end this season with the episode we had planned to make to end the series, way back when we shot the pilot. So, the episode that will air on Christmas is, in fact, the series finale we had always envisioned.” Leverage’s “The Ho Ho Ho Job” is currently winning our poll for favorite Christmas episode. While I still love the show, I have to admit that a few of the later episodes haven’t been as compelling (though the finale looks like it’s going to be awesome!). I’ll be kind of sad if the show ends without us finding out Sophie’s real name, or without Eliot finding someone (poor dude has been the odd man out now that Nate and Sophie and Hardison and Parker are together). And I look forward to seeing where the actors end up next year!
Also renewed – Psych! It’s been given a season 8 before season 7 has even begun to air. It’s only an 8-episode season, though (a shorter season sometimes indicates a final season, but they haven’t stated it’s the final one). That may be to get the show on a different schedule, as what used to be a summer show was pushed back to a fall, and now a late winter, start.
Other news: the final main actor (Chloe Bennet) for the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot has been cast, and she’s another newbie to the Whedonverse, making Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson) the only Whedonverse actor to have a regular role in the show. Speaking of the ‘Verse, Jewel Staite’s show The L.A. Complex has been canceled by the CW (it was previously canceled on its original Canadian broadcast channel, but it’s dismal US ratings made it unlikely to be saved by the CW).
The CW seems to be moving away from glitz and glamour and toward grittier drama with an archery bent (and who wouldn’t, after Arrow’s success?). The network has just ordered a script for Sherwood, a period drama about a noblewoman who joins up with Robin Hood and his merry men as she tries to find and free her serf boyfriend.
On the network’s Beauty and the Beast, Sendhil Ramamurthy (Covert Affairs, Heroes) will reoccur as an ambitious assistant district attorney determined to find the vigilante (aka Vincent) who’s been stalking the streets.
AMC has renewed The Walking Dead for season 4 (big surprise), but Glen Mazzara is stepping down as showrunner.
Brian Klugman is joining Bones as a new squintern, as some of that weird, brillant group will possibly depart for other projects.
