'Gotham' Season 5 Won't Debut Until 2019

While fans of Gotham can breathe a sigh of relief with the news that the series is getting one [...]

While fans of Gotham can breathe a sigh of relief with the news that the series is getting one more season to wrap up, the wait for new episodes will be a long one.

FOX recently released their network schedule for the 2018 - 2019 season, revealing that Gotham is being held for a mid-season premiere for its 13-episode order, according to a report from Deadline.

Gotham fans should be accustomed to long waits between new episodes after the series' unorthodox scheduling, which frequently included regular "fall" and "winter" hiatuses in recent years.

And while the long wait from the upcoming Season 4 finale and the premiere of the fifth and final season might put some off, it's just a caveat after the whirlwind of events over the last few days.

Gotham was on the chopping block as FOX underwent a restructuring of sorts, axing almost every series that wasn't produced in house. Gotham's fate seemed tied to Lethal Weapon, a popular show on the network. Both are made by Warner Bros. Television, and Lethal Weapon was all but guaranteed a renewal after its strong sophomore season.

But star Clayne Crawford was recently fired from the series, putting its continuation in jeopardy. Early reports stated that Gotham's renewal was contingent on Lethal Weapon's cancelation. But Lethal Weapon casted Sean William Scott for Season 3, getting picked up by FOX, and the writing seemed to be on the wall for Gotham.

News of Gotham getting 13 more episodes to wrap up the series (and bump its episode count to 100 for the requisite syndication sales) was surprising, especially after Lucifer was cancelled after three seasons.

Gotham Season 5 is said to feature Bruce Wayne finally becoming Batman.

"The fifth and final season will wrap up this unique origin story of the great DC Comics Super-villains and vigilantes, which revealed an entirely new chapter that has never been told," the producers told Deadline.

The fifth season will also serve as a soft reboot after the events of No Man's Land, according to what executive producer Danny Cannon told ComicBook.com earlier this year.

"Our characters have reached a maturity now, our characters are so well defined and that's why I think as writers, that's right about the point when you want to change people's perception of them," Cannon said. "The [term] 'reboot' means, just when you thought you knew people, something else will happen, and just when you thought your Season 5 would be like Season 4, Season 5 is completely different. New characters and old characters that have changed. It's a complete [departure], and the city has changed too, new characters on a new landscape."

Gotham Season 5 will premiere in 2019. The Season 4 finale, "A Dark Knight: No Man's Land," will air on Thursday, May 17th at 8pm ET on FOX.

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