Offspring ‘The Final Episode’ 8:45pm Wednesday on TEN.
After five seasons full of Births, Deaths, Laughs and plenty of Romance, it would seem it’s now time to say goodbye to Offspring.
While Ten and the programs producers are yet to confirm the decision to end the series, having watching the final episode there can be little doubt that this is indeed the end.
While not wanting to give too much away, the final episode is a strong conclusion for the series that fans will love. Focused on baby Zoe’s first birthday the episode is designed to give every character from both the past and present their moment to shine.
In 2013 Ten made the rare decision to commission a forth and fifth series of Offspring in the one order, this gave the shows writers the freedom to develop a longer story arch including the ‘cliff-hanger’ death of Patrick storyline.
Logistically a sixth season was always going to be problematic for Ten. Australian Tax Laws allow for a 30% rebate for TV series to help them develop however this discount is no longer available once 65 episodes have been produced. Offspring has now hit this limit, a sixth season would have also meant pay rises for the in demand young cast.
While initially TEN’s Chief Programming Officer Beverley McGarvey was dismissive of a 6th season of Offspring, however after a recent fan backlash she stated: “Imogen Banks and John Edwards are the best in the business and we’re obviously very proud of everything that Offspring has achieved. Network TEN would, of course, like to proceed with series 6 and we are in discussions with the producers now.”
However with John Edwards and Imogen Banks now busy producing Party Tricks starring Asher Keddie for Ten and Gallipoli for Nine, plus talk of another secret project it’s hard to see where anymore Offspring fits into their schedule.
Perhaps a spin-off series focused on the life of Billie Proudman (Kat Stewart) would be a better option.
