Stake off: FX is preparing to finish off our favourite vampires

As any vampire can tell you, death is not the end – but when a network decides not to make any more episodes of your favourite vampire-themed comedy, it's the television equivalent of driving a stake into its heart. What We Do In The Shadows, the gut-bustingly funny vampire sitcom, will come to an end after its sixth series next year.

The news was reported by Vulture, which says that season six will be the last season of the show. That goes into production in January 2024 and while there's no official streaming date as yet it should be on our screens later next year.

Why has FX made the undead dead?

The source doesn't say why the show won't be continuing, but clearly it isn't because it's jumped the shark: reviews for the recently completed Season 5 have been good, and while the Rotten Tomatoes score is down a bit from the 100% of season 3 and season 4 it still has a 95% rating that many shows would kill for. 

Reviewers certainly don't think the show is running out of steam: Bloody Disgusting says that "Five seasons in, What We Do in the Shadows proves that it still has lots of life coursing through its veins and plenty more to say", while the Daily Beast says that "The series refuses to rest on its laurels, repeatedly expanding its crazy vampire mythology and universe in unexpected ways." Only a few reviewers think that the show has perhaps hung around for too many millennia: Slashfilm says that "the series is getting a little long in the tooth."

While you can never be entirely sure why shows come to an end, it's possible that the end of WWDITS isn't a network decision but one that's come from the show's creators: the comedy graveyard is littered with shows that didn't know when to quit, and whose later seasons felt as if there must be an energy vampire sapping what one made them so exciting. Maybe the cast and crew have decided to quit while they're a-dead.