“Can’t you stop it, Dad?” – Bart Simpson
“I’m trying my best!” – Homer Simpson
“The lever you have pulled – Brakes – is not in service. Please make a note of it.” – Monorail Computer Voice
As you may have heard by now, Zombie Simpsons got renewed for two more production runs yesterday. This will bring the total episode count up to a near Satanic 669 and fill out Season 29 and 30(!). The press release and all the articles I saw didn’t mention it, but I believe that this is not a new contract, but rather FOX picking up the two year option it had on the current contract. Negotiations on that one went into overtime and the show production actually went on hiatus, so this is much less dramatic. Last time this happened, I wrote:
– the next time to look for a renewal announcement will be October-ish of 2016
– the next deadline for a renewal announcement will be May-ish of 2017
Didn’t quite nail that, but I was pretty close. So this basically sets the clock forward two more years. The next time to look for a renewal announcement will be October-ish of 2018, and the next deadline will be May-ish of 2019. I’ll see if I can confirm that this is the option rather than a new contract. If I hear back, I’ll update this post.
In the meantime, may I recommend going out and watching Season 4 or something? Forty-four more forgettable episodes is “news”, but it’s not really news, you know?
Update 7 Nov: Someone at FOX confirmed to me (“off the record”, like this is some kind of secret) that this is, in fact the two year option from the last contract. So there were no negotiations this time around.
Dead Homer Society 
4 responses to “FOX Picks Up Two Year Option for Seasons 29 & 30 (Meh)”
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At times like this, I guess all you can do is laugh. (Sits staring in silence)
How is this news? Most people who still watch the show (albeit for hate-watch reasons) already knew it would get a 29th season (since season 28 will probably have leftover episodes and they need a new season for them to spill over) and Al Jean himself said he wanted the show to have a 30th season (and possibly end there or before the start of the 2020s). Tell us something we don’t know already.
And when the day comes that the show finally does end, will anyone give a shit? Most of us Simpsons watchers have given up on the show already and moved on to other things (be they TV-related or not). The only reaction people will get when that day comes is, “I thought the show was canceled already.” (like what happened when Reading Rainbow ended its run on PBS. Thankfully, that show lives on as an app and an online series because, as bleak, depressing, and Simpsons-esque as the world can be at times [come on, one episode predicted that Donald Trump will be president and run the country into the ground, which some people have a sick feeling will happen. Conversely, that same episode predicted that we will have a female president trying to pick up the pieces from the last administration, so, there’s that], there are people out there who care about trying to make it a better place).
Shouldn’t the 2-year option plan leave open the possibility of a partial Season 30 production run?