Weeds: Season Eight for Showtime Series

There’s been quite a bit of talk about Showtime’s Weeds ending after the show’s seventh season on the air, particularly in light of the show’s most recent ratings. The show started out the season okay but the numbers quickly dropped. Season seven closed with just a 0.3 rating in the 18-49 demo and 556,000 viewers.

Total viewership is what counts most to the pay-for-view channel and apparently season seven’s was good enough to get Weeds renewed for another round of 13 episodes.

Here’s the Showtime press release:

SHOWTIME(R) LOADS UP ANOTHER HIT OF WEEDS

Network Greenlights Eighth Season for 2012 debut

LOS ANGELES, CA – (November 10, 2011) – SHOWTIME is packing another hit of its highest-rated comedy series WEEDS, picking up an eighth season. Thirteen new episodes will go into production in 2012.

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Created by Emmy(R) Award winner Jenji Kohan and produced by Lionsgate, WEEDS has been honored with multiple Emmy(R) and Golden Globe(R) Award nominations and wins over the course of its seven seasons on air. Viewers have watched and marveled as Nancy Botwin (series star Mary-Louise Parker in her Golden Globe(R) Award-winning performance) has progressed from a suburban widow who turns to selling nickel bags to make ends meet for her family to a full-fledged marijuana queenpin.

Last season jumped ahead three years and picked up with Nancy finishing a stint in federal prison. Her brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) and sons, Silas (Hunter Parrish) and Shane (Alexander Gould) – with Doug (Kevin Nealon) in tow — were camped out in Copenhagen during her incarceration. They were all reunited in New York City where Nancy re-launched her pot business, worked at a hedge fund, fought off competition, and fought for custody of her son, little Stevie, from her sister Jill (special guest star Jennifer Jason Leigh). The season finale, which aired in September, showed the family dining together, happily residing at a Connecticut estate. But when a lone gunman fired a fateful bullet, viewers were left to wonder which of our beloved Botwins was the target, setting the stage for another audacious season.

What do you think? Are you glad to hear that Weeds has been renewed or should it have been cancelled instead? Are you still watching? How long should this show continue?