It appears we’ll have to wait a much longer time than expected to see our favorite alcoholic scientist and jittery grandson duo return to our television screens. According to an article from Den of Geek, co-creator Dan Harmon spoke about the current status of the show on twitter through an exchange with a fan, and it doesn’t bode well. Harmon informed the world that Adult Swim has not renewed Rick and Morty for a fourth season.
The hiatus was hinted at earlier in the year when writer Ryan Ridley said that the writing team hasn’t even started writing scripts for season 4. This makes sense since television crews typically don’t start production on a show until they’ve been green-lit by the networks for a new season.
Even if Rick and Morty eventually gets renewed, it will be a long time before we see new episodes. The show is already infamous for long breaks in between seasons. The gap between season 2 and 3 was well over a year due to perfectionism and cutting the season length from 14 to 10 episodes. Writing, and especially animation, for the show takes a while before the staff are satisfied with the results.
I’m fairly confident that the program will return. Not renewing the show at all would be a terrible decision to make, given the show’s immense popularity. This is a show whose fan base was so vocal about a discontinued subpar McDonald’s sauce from the 90’s that the fast food giant brought it back, and chaos ensued. So even if Adult Swim decides on not renewing the show at all, I’m sure the fans will channel that Szechuan energy into pressuring the network to change their minds. It’s not much of a stretch to say the show will return, but it’s a good bet to say it won’t return for a while, and that’s unfortunate.
