HBO’s sharp political comedy Veep has been one of the premiere network’s Emmy staples: the series has been nominated six years in a row in a multitude of award categories since its premiere back in 2012, going on to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy series with its fourth and fifth seasons.
But all good things must come to an end. This week, HBO announced that Veep would see its final episodes with its season 7 in 2018. This decision was reached by the show’s executive producers, who all agreed the story is reaching its closure. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the news.
Many of the show’s stars have expressed their sadness over Veep’s end, but have also admitted that season 7 is an appropriate conclusion for the comedy. Veep’s powerhouse lead and executive producer Julia Louis-Dreyfus said, “It became clear that this season should be the last season. We don’t want to repeat ourselves or wear out our welcome. The story has a finality to it that feels end-of-series.”
Louis-Dreyfus went on to stress that her character Selina Meyer has been “a role of a lifetime”. Executive producer David Mandel added, “We don’t want to repeat ourselves or be boring. It’s bittersweet but it’s right.” Stars Reid Scott (who plays Dan Eagan on the show) and Timothy Simons (Jonah Ryan) tweeted out their own thoughts about the end of Veep, with Timothy Simons even including a screenshot of a Veep cast group text.
Veep was created by British comedic writer/director Armando Iannucci, who’s famous for his UK political comedy series The Thick of It and its sister movie, In the Loop. In 2015, Iannucci passed the reins of the HBO comedy to David Mandel to spend more time with his family and work on other projects. Iannucci has his latest comedic film, The Death of Stalin, premiering on October 20th.
Mandel stated that Veep’s final season will have 10 episodes is set to begin shooting on October 16th.