The Magicians Cancelled by Syfy

Syfy’s The Magicians will come to an end with its fifth season finale. On Tuesday, Syfy announced that the fifth season of The Magicians will be the show’s last. That means the show’s April 1st season five finale will now serve as the show’s series finale. The Magicians is a television adaptation of Lev Grossman’s trilogy of novels — The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician’s Land. The series is produced by Universal Content Productions. The news comes with five episodes of the fifth and final season still left to air. Whether that’s enough time to tie up loose plot threads and bring the series to a satisfying conclusion remains to be seen.

“The Magicians has been a part of our Syfy family for five fantastic seasons,” Syfy said in a statement announcing the show’s cancellation. “As we near the end of this journey, we want to thank [executive producers] John McNamara, Sera Gamble, Henry Alonso Myers, Lev Grossman, and our entire brilliant cast, crew, writers and directors for their beautiful creation. But most of all, we thank the fans for their tremendous support and passion. Because of you, magic will be in our hearts forever.”

The end comes after the show’s fourth season went in a surprising direction, killing off the show’s main character, Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph). As Coldwater is the central figure in all three of Grossman’s novels, that move set the remainder of the series on a different path, with the show’s supporting characters mourning Quentin’s death and attempting to move on with their lives.

The premise of The Magicians is a more-grown-up riff on Harry Potter, with a group of college-age students discovering and attending Brakebills University, a secret school for magicians. During their time at the school, they discover that Fillory, the magical realm from a series of children’s books similar to The Chronicles of Narnia, is a real alternate dimension that they can visit. The group of friends find the realm and become its new kings and queens. Grossman is a critic of fantasy literature and used the set up to explore the nature of fantasy and the positive and negative ways that someone’s relationship with it can affect their lives.

In addition to Jason Ralph as Quentin, the series also stars Stella Maeve, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Hale Appleman, Arjun Gupta, Summer Bishil, Rick Worthy, Jade Tailor, Brittany Curran, and Trevor Einhorn. The series was created for television by Sera Gamble and John McNamara, who executive produced along with Michael London and Janice Williams.