News broke on Tuesday that Syfy’s The Magicians will come to an end with its fifth season finale. The announcement was a big blow to fans of the series as it sank in that the upcoming April 1st season finale will also be the series finale as well. As is the case when nearly any television show meets its end these days, the question was raised as to whether the series might find a home on streaming or even another network. While that isn’t the case, it turns out that the producers did try and were just unable to find a suitable home for the fan-favorite series.
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“Yeah, we were aware that it was definitely not going forward on Syfy at that point and that we were then going to want at least to try to make a run on other platforms,” executive producer John McNamara told TV Insider.
He further explained that while attempts were made, no suitable home was found, including NBC Universal.
“None of them seemed in the end like a perfect financial or creative fit,” McNamara said. “And so we reluctantly just decided, ‘Well at least we have this season finale that was crafted to also be a series finale.’ It was kind of always going to pull double duty.”
An adaptation of Lev Grossman‘s trilogy of novels — The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician’s Land — the series debuted on December 16, 2015. A grown-up riff of sorts on Harry Potter, the series follows a group of college-age students discovering not only that magic is real, but they end up attending Brakebills University, a secret college for magicians. During their time at Brakebills, they discover that Fillory, the magical realm from a series of children’s books is actually a real alternate dimension. The group becomes the realm’s kings and queens, but magic and fantasy aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and the series consistently challenges many of the elements and tropes of the fantasy genre while also tackling many real-life issues, such as sexuality, mental health, and trauma.
The end of The Magicians comes following a powerful fourth season in which the show’s main character, Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) dies, a development that has seen the rest of the characters dealing with their own grief and loss in the show’s fifth and now final season.
“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.”
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