Portlandia Will End After Season Eight
IFC alerted audiences that the current season of “Portlandia” they’re enjoying will be its penultimate while thanking the sketch show for molding the channel’s rebranding so that its original content would be “always on-slightly off”. Thursday at a press tour stop at the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, California, IFC president and general manager Jennifer Caserta announced an eighth season of “Portlandia” airing in 2018, will be the last.
Co-stars Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and co-creator Jonathan Krisel avoided completely answering certain questions about the finality of the series’ end, leaving the door open for fans to fantasize a potential film some day. Krisel noted the show’s freshness as a reason to let it rest-before it gets stale for viewers and the creators. Krisel explained, “We still love it” and added, “We’ll work together. There are other outlets” while Brownstein piggybacked off the sentiment saying, “I think nothing ever really ends anyway”. Especially considering the packed line-up of star cameos throughout the past six seasons, it’s plausible that a film paying homage more to the universe “Portlandia” created and less intent on staying present could someday wrap up many plot lines, but that’s a long ways off.
Debuting in 2011, “Portlandia” survived the infamously short attention span of the internet, waves of cultural shifts making mainstream audiences more sensitive to diversity and portrayals of certain types of characters and most of all, many years and the growing up of some of their audiences (this is at least true personally). “Portlandia” pumped IFC up from more than an indie channel replaying cult classic films to a producer of original content. Shows like “Stan Against Evil”, “Documentary Now!” or the upcoming “Brockmire” have “Portlandia” to thank for their freedom to channel weirdness. It’s also bittersweet that the societally satirical show will close out its run so close to Obama’s administration ending; it’s probably the beginning of a new era, and new shows will do the lampooning.