If you told a casual TV show viewer that Riverdale is finally coming to an end, the responses you might get are “Finally!” or “It was on this whole time?” What was once a hit endeavor slowly lost all hold of its plot with every succeeding season, so much so that even ardent fans knew that it couldn’t go on for much longer.
Now it is official—Riverdale will be ending with Season 7.
Riverdale will end with S7 due to multiple reasons—low viewership ratings, WarnerMedia and Discover merger into Warner Bros, and cast contracts.
For a while it really did seem that nothing could get Riverdale off its tracks. Season 6 even ventured into the occult and gave the characters superpowers, which despite being ridiculous, in a way seemed to protected the show from getting cancelled.
This is perhaps one of the most important things to note—Riverdale isn’t getting “canceled.” The official reason to end the show was to give it a proper send-off and flourish it with a fitting ending.
In short, Riverdale wanted to avoid the PR stigma of having to cancel it and actually admit that it was renewed far too many times already.
Those with a keen eye might’ve already been expecting the show to end. For one, S6 has had the lowest viewership ratings despite having an ambitious crossover with The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
As per reports, on the cable network, the show experienced approximately a 45% viewership drop from the previous season. However, Netflix was able to save it by maintaining its viewership globally.
Then came the WarnerMedia and Discover merger with Warner Bros that ended Netflix and CW’s deal. This deal also resulted in many other shows getting canceled—Dynasty, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, etc.
With no Netflix to generate international revenue and not enough domestic revenue, Riverdale had to reconsider its stance.
There is also a small possibly that ending the show with S7 was the plan all along—after all, during S4, KJ Apa did disclose that he and other main cast had only signed on for three more years, leading up to S7. So, in some sense or the other, the show knew that S7 would be the end of a chapter.
Well, there you go. These are some of the factors that contributed to the show coming to an end after seven seasons.
Now that the show knows the end is definitive, I hope they will strive to make Season 7 a decent one.
About Riverdale
Based on a story from the popular Archies Comics, the 2017 Netflix drama Riverdale is centered on an innocent, small town of the same name.
It follows a group of high school students who are shocked by the death of a classmate, Jason Blossom. Together they unravel the secrets of Riverdale and who killed Jason.
Cole Sprouse’s grungy Jughead is the show’s narrator and school reporter who almost acts like its ‘Gossip Girl’ — documenting the characters’ lives and filling in the blanks for us.
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