'Shadowhunters' Midseason Premiere Date Announced

Freeform has announced the midseason return date for Shadowhunters, and it turns out fans won't have to wait quite as long as expected for the final episodes of the series.

According to Deadline, the fantasy drama series will return for the rest of the third and final season on Monday, February 25. This date is a bit earlier than the vague "Spring 2019" timeline that had previously been reported. That spring date itself was a clarification of a mid-August date that had also been floating around.

For fans of the series this new, much-sooner release date is likely to be cold comfort. It was announced last June that Shadowhunters would be ending its run after three seasons. While the series has a devoted fan base and the network indicated that they were pleased with the show creatively, economic reasons ultimately decided its fate. Constantin Film, which co-produces Shadowhunters with Freeform, lost their output deal with Netflix and had asked Freeform for an increased investment. It was ultimately something that the network just couldn't make work.

"We went back and forth with them but ultimately we just couldn't make the economics work," network EVP of Programming and Development Karey Burke said last year. "We were very happy creatively with it."

Ordered to series by Freeform (then ABC Family) in 2015, Shadowhunters is the second live-adaptation of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments series of novels. The previous adaptation was the 2013 feature film The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. While Shadowhunters' end marks the second time an adaptation of Clare's series has been cut short -- the movie had planned sequels which were cancelled due to poor box office performance of the first film -- the show remains popular with fans who put forth a concentrated effort to save the series. Those efforts were acknowledged by series star Isaiah Mustafa in his acceptance speech when Shadowhunters won TV Show of 2018 at the People's Choice Awards.

"We just wanted to say thank you to the most dedicated, loving fandom out there," Mustafa said. "We miss you guys. We're going to see you in 2019."

Shadowhunters is currently on mid-season hiatus and will end with a 12-episode wrap-up. Marketing the end of the show, Freeform is calling the second half of the third season Shadowhunters: The Final Hunt and will conclude the series with a two-hour finale.

Shadowhunters returns to Freeform on Monday, February 25 at 8 p.m. ET.