The Shield creator and executive producer Shawn Ryan had announced in May that he was unsure if he would be doing another season of the show that stars Michael Chiklis as tough cop Vic Mackey. After weeks of wondering, fans can now rest easy. There will actually be two new seasons of the gritty FX show. Well, sort of.
Ryan has confessed, “The writers and I weren’t quite ready to step away from these characters just yet. We asked FX for an additional 13 episodes to conclude the show properly and, as always, the network graciously let us do what we thought was best for the show.”
As a result, the ten Shield episodes that are currently in production, which many expected to be part of the current season (season five), will now be delayed until 2007 and called season six. Season five guest Forest Whitaker (as Internal Affairs detective Jon Kavanaugh) will appear in some of the season six episodes.
Then, production will begin on the final 13 Shield episodes (season seven) in the summer of 2007 and will be released presumably in late 2007/early 2008. The two final seasons will bring the episode count of the FX original and award-winning series to a total of 88.
Said FX president John Landgraf, “It has been the privilege of everyone at FX to work with Shawn Ryan, Michael Chiklis and their colleagues on The Shield. It has always been our intent to have the show exit television as it entered, as one of the best drama series ever. We’re thrilled Shawn has come up with a great way to end the series and that it will require one final season for his vision to reach completion.”
So, will that be the end of Mackey’s rule-breaking exploits? Could there be TV-movies? Hard to say. The series is FX’s first original series and has proven to be very popular, attracting a high-viewership (especially considering it’s only available to cable and satellite subscribers) as well as multiple award nominations and wins. With that in mind, I can’t help wondering if we might see Shield stories, in some form, for a long time to come.
Side note: For an interesting story on how Michael Chiklis got the role of Vic Mackey, click here. 
season 7 will premiere on april 1 2008,according to wikipedia?!
SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHEN THE SHIELD IS COMING BACK ON? I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND IT ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET:( I’M OBSESSED WITH THIS SHOW:) THANX DAWN
FROM OHIO
If you end a show in it’s prime, it will be remembered as a great story with a great ending. If you take the Law & Order approach and drag things on and spin off other ideas, well, then you’ve got a TV show that people can recognize the name for, but there’s no major fans. If they are ending the Shield, just end it right.
Dont stop the Shield, this show is great and i have had many good times watching the shield with my buddies. Keep the seasons coming or elsE!!!
if they end this show fx is a bunch of ********
I NEED SCHDULE OF SEASON 7
It’s sad to see such a fine show come to an end when there are so many loyal viewers out there. I guess I should be thankful for the show even being produced in the first place and all the hard work that brought this fine show together. So, thanks for the awesome characters and the crazy sometimes sick script. If you guys decide to make more seasons you can count on me and many others to tune in and gasp, yell, and cringe at every episode.
We’ll miss you Lemansky.
I’m from FRANCE and there are many fans of this great serie here too .We are thousand fans here and we are hoping that The SHIELD will continue after 7th season !!! The Shield is THE BEST!!!
1 season left. God damn that sucks, Ive been a fan since the beginning, and I will be sorry to see it go.
Rip Curtis Lemansky
I have been buying the series on dvd because id missed the first few series but now cant wait for the 7th please reconsider cancelling the show even if it has to goto another channel
the first time i watched this show, i was surrounded be inmates. it was the begining of my love twards the shield. scince then my wife and i watched every episode together (after released) we hope their will be more to come, but it does not look to well in the long term! 🙁
Ok, maybe it’s me, but at the very beginning didn’t it say that it was the creator and not FX that is canceling the show?
hey the shield rules best tv show out at the mo season 7 gonna b crackin me and my friends have created a group on facebook called “we love the shield” every1 welcome to join and contribute feel the luv people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I´m from Peru and The Shield is THE BEST show ever!!! Better than Homicide: Life on the streets, NYPD Blue and The Wire. It`s sad to see it go but at least it`s going down on top (not like the last season of Hill street blues)
does anybody knows when 7th season beggins?