Skip to main content

HBO Sets Date for Fifth and Final Season of Big Love, New Project in the Works for Olsen/Scheffer

It's official: it's the end of the road for the Henrickson clan.

HBO today announced that the fifth and final season of Big Love will kick off on January 16th. Yes, you read that correctly: the final season.

“It has been an honor and pleasure to work with series creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer on this unique and provocative series, and I’m happy that they will be able to bring the story to its close the way they always envisioned,” said HBO Programming president Michael Lombardo in a statement. “We look forward with great anticipation to collaborating with Mark and Will on their next venture.”

However, don't get angry at HBO. At least according to comments made by Olsen and Scheffer in the official press release, it seems as though the series is reaching a natural ending, as it were... and the duo aren't going anywhere. It appears that a new HBO project for the writing team will be announced shortly.

“When we created Big Love in 2002, we had a strong conception of the journey the Henrickson family would make over the course of the series, of the story we had to tell,” said Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer in a joint statement. “While we were in the writers’ room this year shaping our fifth season, we discovered that we were approaching the culmination of that story.

Big Love has been our all-consuming labor of love for the past eight years. We are very grateful for HBO’s continuing support and for the collaborative effort of our partners at Playtone, our producers, our fine cast and our fellow craftsmen and crew for making this show the exceptional and joyful experience that it’s been," they continued. "This coming January, we look forward to presenting our audience with the most vibrant and satisfying final season of a television series that we can produce.”

Here's what executive producer Gary Goetzman had to say about the news:

Big Love has been a truly rewarding experience in every way for Tom Hanks and me,” said Goetzman. “We’ve been so fortunate to have had such a tremendous cast over the five seasons, and we’ve never been less than amazed with their brilliance and willingness to take risks. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our partnership with Will and Mark and have always been blown away by their storytelling abilities. We believe this final season of BIG LOVE will be the best ever.”

As for that future project, here's what HBO had to say: "Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer have a continuing relationship with HBO, and their next project for the network will be announced when it is confirmed."

In other words: stay tuned.

Personally, I'm going to miss the Henricksons. Over the last four seasons, I've come to fall head over heels in love with this complex and emotionally resonant series. While Season Four may have been shaky at times, I still maintain that the third season of Big Love stacks up against the all-time greatest television seasons of all time.

And I have a feeling that Season Five will attempt to shift the tone of the series back in line with where it was in the third season. I have faith in Olsen and Scheffer to not only wrap up this series with grace and grit but also to reduce me to tears once more.

Are you sad about the news? Is it time for HBO to wrap up the saga of the polygamist family drama? Or is there still life left in this non-traditional family? Head to the comments to discuss.

Comments

KateML said…
We don't have HBO so we're waiting for the DVDs to watch that fourth season, but we thoroughly enjoyed seasons 1-3 and are looking forward to watching the last two.

It seems like it's so unusual these days for a series to get to go out exactly as it wants when it wants, and of course there's no doubt that the story arc benefits. I'm glad the Hendricksons are getting that advantage.
Cat said…
I'm a HUGE Big Love fan. Even though season four was a bit rocky, it never lost me. I think this show is one of the very best on TV, and I'm sad to see it go, but it's great that the show-runners are leaving on their terms. HBO's been good to Big Love.
Kerryanne (uk) said…
I am extremely sad to see this amazing drama is coming to an end, especially a season 4 was such a short one. I do however have faith that the writers will end on a proper note and not leave us hanging, one wish for the new sea son s that it is longer than season 4.

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns