According to Variety, Showtime has announced that the upcoming fifth season of Episodes will be the show’s last. The award-winning comedy series focuses on the wacky behind-the-scenes drama of the entertainment industry, and it stars Friends’ Matt LeBlanc as a fictionalized version of himself who, oddly, seems to get more consistent work than he does in real life. That’s changing, though, with CBS giving a series commitment to a LeBlanc-starring comedy pilot and BBC’s Top Gear hiring him as one of its new hosts, so it seems like the reasoning for Showtime’s decision to end the show now might have something to do with LeBlanc suddenly being a lot busier than he used to be. The official story, though, is that co-creators David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik have simply reached a point where they’re ready to end Episodes, saying, “we’ve told the story we set out to tell and we’d never want to outstay our welcome.”
Production on the fifth season of Episodes is starting soon, and its seven episodes will debut at some point in 2017.