After a decade and a half of stories, Supernatural is coming to an end.
Stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins announced in a video posted to Twitter Friday that the crew of the long-running CW series was just informed that the upcoming 15th season of the show will be its last.
“Fifteen years of a show that has certainly changed my life, I know it’s changed these two guys’ life, and we just wanted you to hear from us that though we’re excited about next year it will be the finale,” Ackles said.
Supernatural is currently in the middle of its 14th season, which will allow it to reach its 300th episode. The upcoming Season 15 does not have a premiere date yet, but will likely arrive in the fall of 2019. Like Season 14, it will consist of 20 episodes, bringing the grand total for the series to 327 episodes in 15 years.
“Firstly, we would like to thank all the people who have been involved with the show both in front of and behind the camera. For us it has been an experience of a lifetime. The support we have had from both Warner Bros Television and The CW has been incredible. We’d like to give special thanks to Jensen, Jared and Misha for making this journey so special. It is now most important to us to give these characters that we love the send off they deserve,”
The end of Supernatural will mark the end of a television era. The series premiered in 2005, back when The CW was still The WB and when genre television was less prominent. In a matter of a few years The CW would explode with new series like The Vampire Diaries and Arrow, but Supernatural was there before them, bridging the gap between the era of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the era of The Arrowverse. It’s the last remaining show from The WB era to remain on the air, as well as The CW’s longest-running scripted series. It had been around so long, in an age when even five seasons of a series is considered a solid achievement, that at times it truly felt like this day might never come.
One thing’s for sure, though: With plenty of time to plan for the series finale, we can expect one hell of a sendoff.