Why Vikings Ended After 6 Seasons - Was It Canceled?

Success can sometimes be a source of frustration for studios, as shows that once helped carry the banner for a brand may suddenly get replaced by fresher faces on the marquee. For Netflix, the release of new programs comes in waves every week, and that makes it hard for even long-term favorites to keep sailing forward amid so much change. "Vikings" was a program that became a History Channel favorite back in 2013, when the prospect of a serialized show with a real budget was still in vogue on mid-size cable TV networks. According to an interview in Variety with series creator Michael Hirst, the show didn't end because of dwindling ratings, but rather because he had finished the story he set out to tell.

"Vikings" was well-liked by the people who discovered it over on History in the beginning, and that continued for a lot of the show's run on the network. In essence, there just wasn't a lot of storytelling that was doing this kind of lightly historical epic on TV at the time, with these stories usually reserved for the big screen. But the audience continued to find Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) and company wherever they were. It didn't take long for "Vikings" to become a word-of-mouth hit, as the first episode notched north of 6 million viewers for the maiden voyage. With that kind of buy-in, and viewers still enamored with the golden age of TV, it's easy to see how "Vikings" largely carved its way to four seasons on the History Channel with no real problem.

As we now know, there was a revolution coming up on the horizon, and "Vikings" wouldn't be able to steer clear of that catastrophe. In short, viewing habits changed throughout the show's run, as people started to find the series through other avenues. Now, that might not seem like a big obstacle for a series that was a standard bearer for The History Channel, but that is expertise that the executives in control just didn't have at that time. Fortunately, the show ended on its own terms.

Context is key when discussing the entertainment business over the last decade, and "Vikings" presents an interesting test case for the looming importance of streaming in our media environment. A lot of different corners had money riding on the success of The History Channel's scripted series back in 2013, as both the network and its parent company, A&E Global Media (and subsequently Disney, after they bought a 50% stake), are massive priorities for the conglomerate. "Vikings" was the #1 scripted series in the history of the network. So, even when the show began to pull in regular basic cable numbers for the 18-24 year-old demographic, they wanted to do right by series creator Michael Hirst.

Hirst had previously told Variety that he always planned for six seasons, no matter what had occurred on the way to that finish line. And, luckily for him and his crew, they arrived on those shores unscathed. But, there are still people who wonder if the slightly declining viewership might have had something to do with how "Vikings" ended. Hirst wants to put those claims to bed, and argued this fact during an interview in 2019. As he explained:

"What I was trying to do was write the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons. After six seasons and 89 episodes, that's what I felt — finally — I'd done," the showrunner explained. "We stopped shooting the final episode in November last year and I felt that I'd said all I needed to say about Ragnar and his sons. I told my saga, and I'd been very fortunate to be given that opportunity by MGM and History. I had no reason to want to continue it beyond that."

So, a long-tenured cable favorite sailed into the sunset, or at least that's what you would believe based on how these stories used to go. But, in the modern era of streaming TV shows, it's rarely that simple. Almost as soon as the ending of "Vikings" was announced, Netflix scooped up a successor series in "Vikings: Valhalla." As a result of different streaming deals over time, a lot of fans never even knew the original show really aired on The History Channel and got all their exposure to the series through streaming. So, it's no big deal to follow this new version of the series to a different streamer, or platform, in the face of the main "Vikings" show drawing to a close.

There are three seasons of "Vikings: Valhalla" for you to go sift through over on Netflix, and that's exciting news for anyone craving more of this world. It's reasonable to think that this kind of related series probably wouldn't have come to pass without the ascent of streaming TV. The History Channel probably wasn't interested in an expensive scripted series anymore, and Netflix had a show that they could easily continue for a few seasons with the data to back up that investment. This is the current climate of TV, and it's a bit murky to deal with, as those numbers feel almost crucial to any show's survival. But, rest assured, the original "Vikings" run only ended because Hirst decided to hang up his battle axe, and the show ended better than the Viking burial that other programs often endure.