True Blood Renewed for Season 7 by HBO

HBO has announced that True Blood has been renewed for a seventh season, set to premiere in the summer of 2014. Brian Bruckner will return for his second season as showrunner, though an episode count has yet to be confirmed. The current season is the first True Blood season to go below 12 episodes; while that was reportedly to accommodate Anna Paquin’s pregnancy, the show could possibly continue with 10-episode seasons for financial reasons. Although it’s exceeding 10 million viewers an episode for what has been a down season in the ratings, shows get much more expensive the more they go on and even the mightiest of ratings giants have to do some creative maneuvering to keep themselves on the air.

Also yet to be confirmed is whether or not next season will be True Blood‘s final season. Cast contracts have been said to be seven seasons, so if ratings are strong next season and their drama development proves to be disappointing, HBO could opt to bring it back for an eighth season, an usually high number for a drama on the network. That would mean having to renegotiate, though, and could result in the series being too expensive to continue, should there be pay raises and a lack of significant deaths in season six.

The latter of which, according to Today.com, might not be a worry, as the notably death-averse genre show will be killing off one of its major players later this season. Could the show already be positioning itself for at least two additional seasons? Who do you think will be the important character who bites the dust sometime during season six?

True Blood airs Sundays at 9:00 on HBO.

What have you thought about this season of True Blood? Do you think the show benefits from trimming its episode count from 12 to 10? Would you like for next season to be the final season?