Just last week, news broke that The CW had pulled The Librarians: The Next Chapter from its Fall schedule, and now the show is on the move to TNT (the original home of the franchise) and it has received an order for a second season. When The CW announced the schedule change, it was unclear if they were just delaying the premiere or if the move indicated that the show was in trouble. Now, all of that appears to be related to the behind-the-scenes activities with TNT stepping in to pick up the show up to bolster its scripted content going into 2025. Following are series creator Dean Devlin’s comments on the show shifting venues:
It all started with a phone call I had with Sam Linsky at TNT. He’s been with the show from the very, very beginning in 2004 and I said it was very odd to be working on The Librarians without working with him. He said they were all really jealous about the show. Then about five or six weeks ago, he called and said, ‘Do you think there’s any chance you could move the show from The CW to us, and I said, ‘I don’t know but that seems kind of amazing if that could happen’. I had a phenomenal conversation with the people at The CW, it took a little gymnastics, but they were really supportive. They understood that the idea of bringing the show home was an amazing opportunity.
Not only is the property moving to the cable network, TNT has committed to a second season of the show. That certainly makes sense because the spinoff can be combined with the first series–which ran for four seasons–as well as the movies to bolster its syndication package for encore runs, which is where a show really makes money. The first season of twelve episodes has completed filming and is currently in post-production and should premiere on TNT in early 2025.
This announcement counts as an early renewal for the newly-started 2024-25 season which brings the Cancellation/Renewal Score to 10 renewed sci fi and fantasy entries (63% of shows tracked) vs. 6 cancelled and ending (38%). You can see the breakdown of the numbers and the full list of shows for the current and prior seasons at our Cancellation Watch Page.
The Librarians: The Next Chapter is a sequel series to 2014’s The Librarians and it follows a time-traveling librarian from the past who finds himself trapped in the present and must work with a team of new librarians to clean up the mess he made. It stars Callum McGowan, Olivia Morris, Bluey Robinson, and Jessica Green.
The 2024-25 season has just begun, but there are still shows from the prior year waiting for word on their fates, and I expect more announcements to come over the next month or so. You can see the status of all this season’s shows at this link. And be sure to follow this site as well as our Twitter and Mastodon accounts for updates and breaking news.
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