Showtime has a penchant for keeping shows on the air for a long, long time. For avid fans, this is great news, although some may argue that at least a few of Showtime’s shows have overstayed their welcome during their runs. This week, Showtime announced that Shameless has definitely been renewed and will get a seventh season on the network.
We don’t know a ton a ton about what Season 7 will entail, but the early renewal is still really good for the Shameless cast and crew, who won’t have to wait until after the season ends to wonder whether or not they will have a job during the coming year. The report comes out of the TCA winter press tour, with Showtime noting that 12 more episode will be produced for Season 7 (via THR). Since Season 6 only recently hit the schedule, fans can expect new episodes of Shameless in 2017, hopefully around the time that Twin Peaks hits the air, as well. The renewal came after Shameless earned the highest premiere ratings a show has nabbed on the channel, ever, so since the show is growing in popularity, another season shouldn't be a huge surprise.
The long-running dramedy actually only returned to the schedule three days ago. Spoilers if you aren’t caught up. In the Season 6 premiere, Fiona was given a new job opportunity thanks to sleeping with her boss, Frank remained incredibly sober and checked out a bunch of different religious persuasions, Carl got out of juvy and Debbie had to figure out how to deal with her very teenaged pregnancy. Actually, for everyone but Debbie things seem to be going fairly smoothly, but as this is the Gallaghers we are talking about, and as the show still has most of Season 6 ahead of it—not to mention Season 7 now—it’s highly likely that the entirely storyline is about to go south, and soon.
Shameless is currently one of Showtime's longest-running originals, having hit the schedule the same year as Homeland and Episodes. Regardless, while the network has a tendency to keep shows on the air for years and years, Showtime isn't lacking in creativity and has a slew of other shows in the pipeline, including Billions, which hits the schedule this month. In addition, the subscription cabler is expected to premiere a new program called Roadies this summer. That's not even counting stuff like Masters of Sex, The Affair and Ray Donovan that has earned either popularity, critical acclaim or both.
Shameless airs on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET. You can find out what Showtime and the other subscription cable networks have coming up with our midseason TV premiere schedule.
