Why won't there be a Young Sheldon season 8?
The sitcom is ending – but the Coopers will live on!
Following the runaway success of The Big Bang Theory was never going to be easy, but Young Sheldon has established itself as another massively popular sitcom with its own distinct comedic voice.
The series sees Jim Parsons return to narrate the misadventures of a younger Sheldon Cooper (played by Iain Armitage), as he grows up in a loving family in the fictional town of Medford, Texas.
Young Sheldon reimagined some characters first glimpsed in the original series and created many of its own, with Zoe Perry, Lance Barber, Montana Jordan and Annie Potts among the talent enlisted.
But now, after seven seasons, the show is winding down – and on a sad note, no less. Here's what the team behind Young Sheldon have said about why there won't be an eighth season.
Why won't there be a Young Sheldon season 8?
While Young Sheldon hasn't been overly concerned with contradicting things from The Big Bang Theory, there were two aspects of the title character's life that the creators were keen to honour.
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First, the loss of his father at a young age and, second, Sheldon's early enrolment into university as a child prodigy – both of which we see in the final season, when the character is age 14.
With such enormous change occurring in the life of the Coopers, executive producer Steve Holland told Deadline that it felt natural and correct to wrap things up at this point.
"There are certain things we know happen in Sheldon’s life at 14," he explained. "We started talking about the future of show, and what it looked like. This is the right time for this story to come to an end, knowing that at 14, he goes off to Cal Tech.
"It felt like the right time to end it strong, while it was on top."
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Is there a Young Sheldon spin-off?
Fortunately, fans of Young Sheldon will be able to keep in touch with the characters of Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Mandy (Emily Osment) in their upcoming spin-off sitcom Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage.
Scheduled to premiere on CBS this autumn, the show will follow Sheldon's brother and sister-in-law as they navigate the pitfalls of married life and being young parents.
After the Young Sheldon series finale, Holland told Variety that other characters – beyond Georgie and Mandy themselves – could potentially pop up for cameos in this new chapter.
"It’s always been our hope that this world can continue into the new show. It’s also important to us that this new show gets its own identity and attitude, and isn’t just Young Sheldon season 8.
"That’s part of the reason we’re going back to multi-cam, to really make it feel different. The show needs to establish itself and be its own thing but, that said, this is a world that these characters still live in, and they’re still family and they’re still in Medford."
He added: "We love these actors, and we’ve always thought that this is a world where these characters can drop in and make appearances and be a part of it from time to time."
The 'multi-cam' set-up is that of a traditional studio sitcom, like The Big Bang Theory, with Georgie and Mandy also set to be filmed in front of a live studio audience – a quality which is becoming rarer among today's television comedies.
Holland told Deadline: "I think there’s something to be said for a comedy in front of an audience, a comedy that’s really about laughs. I hope audiences are ready for a return to that. I think there’s a real space for that in the world.
"There are so few of them now, and I have no idea how audiences are going to respond, but I know we are excited about it, and that’s been a good sort of guiding light for us throughout all this... to try to do things we’re excited about and hope an audience follows you along."
Young Sheldon is available to stream on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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