The Fox dramedy about a high school glee club will wrap after six seasons, series co-creator Ryan Murphy said at a Paley Center event honoring FX Network Wednesday night. Murphy also said that the July death of one of the show’s stars, Cory Monteith, had forced the writers to plan out a different ending for Glee than they had originally planned, TV Line reported.
“The final year of the show, which will be next year, was designed around Rachel and Cory/Finn’s story,” Murphy said. “I always knew that, I always knew how it would end. I knew what the last shot was — he was in it. I knew what the last line was — she said it to him. So when a tragedy like that happened you sort of have to pause and figure out what you want to do, so we’re figuring that out now.” He said that his idea for the new finale of the show will honor Monteith’s passing.
Glee has suffered a steady decline in ratings since the second season. The first episode of season five drew 5.2 million viewers, a 3 percent drop from the season four premiere. But the goodbye episode to Monteith in last week’s episode raked in 7.4 million viewers, a 75 percent spike over the previous week.
After Glee, Murphy will move to working on his pilot for HBO, Open.