Longmire has now concluded on Netflix with season 6 of the series landing on Netflix in November 2017. Sadly, that means that there’ll be no season 7 of the show and below, we’re taking a look at why the series was cancelled/ended plus looking at if there’s ever a chance it may return.
The Netflix Original drama series set in the mid-West was developed by John Coveny and Hunt Baldwin based on the novels of the same name. The series mainly focused on Walt Longmire who was played by Robert Taylor throughout the six seasons.
How the show became a Netflix Original
As you may know, A&E were the pioneers that brought us Longmire in the first place. They’re known for great dramas so Longmire fit that category to a tee. After three seasons A&E had announced it no longer planned to produce the series effectively cancelling it. The reasons as to why are still not known to this day as the viewership was strong even on A&E.
After a very short period of shopping the show to other networks, Netflix swooped in after just three months and said it’d continue the show. Netflix produced new series in 2015, 2016 and the final in 2017. Unlike Arrested Development where the quality dropped slightly after Netflix picked it up, Longmire went in the other direction but most importantly grew an even larger audience. It’s also worth noting the production company producing the show stayed the same and that Warner Brothers would still distribute the show in other regions.
Why was Longmire Cancelled?
Netflix announced after season 5 that season 6 would be the final season. Much like A&E however, they too did not really announce the reason as to why. Without viewing figures released by Netflix, we can’t paint a picture but we’d have to assume that the reasons were related to either finances, viewership or the writers deciding it was time.
Our opinion is that the show had run its course, it covered much of the novel series it was based on and to avoid the show running out of ideas and jumping the shark, the showrunners purposely chose season 6 to end Walts story.
Season 6 Ending Explained
The ending to Longmire was always going to be hard to watch but it’s actually ended up to be quite a controversial ending with people criticizing the showrunners for giving the show a rushed ending. The series ends with most of the plotlines tied up and a new sheriff taking over from Walt in the form of Cady Longmire. The show ends with the Sheriff sign on the way into the county.
Probably one of the best scenes from the final episode was Walt making his coffee which again brings you full circle to the first episode. In fact, that was a theme throughout the whole of the episode that Walt has one foot in the past and one foot moving forward as we saw when he finally got a cell phone. Ultimately, you can argue that the series left on a high but also left things open in case they ever wanted to return.
Will Longmire come to Netflix in the United Kingdom and Australia?
Even though Netflix produced the final three seasons Netflix honoured existing contracts where the show had already been shopped to other networks. In the case of the United Kingdom, it was TCM who continued getting new seasons. The final season is scheduled to air on TCM from January 7th, 2018 onwards.
Australia, Italy and Ireland are other good examples of places that honoured existing contracts. Now that the show has wrapped up, it’s likely we’ll have the show added during 2018 at some point but that’s not been confirmed.
Will Longmire ever return?
Stranger things have happened but it does look, at least for the near future, Longmire is on permanent hiatus. The only route we see of it returning is for Netflix to reboot the show or work on a spinoff series. With Cady now in charge of the Sheriff’s department, it’d be good to see her adventures.
It’s always sad to see a Netflix Original cancelled but one of this calibre is severely disappointed but must remain thankful that Netflix saw an opportunity to produce three more stunning series of the show.
