Movies - TV
Vikings’ Creator Thought The Series Wouldn’t Make It Past One Season
By LYVIE SCOTT
“Vikings” debuted in the early 2010s and quickly became a massive hit, charting the rise of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) and his dynastic family line. As the show went on for six seasons and launched a sequel series, it’s easy to assume that “Vikings” was a guaranteed hit from the beginning, but showrunner Michael Hirst revealed that was far from the truth.
Hirst admitted that, though he had a sort of tentative plan for the overarching story, he kept his expectations about its longevity realistic. The showrunner explained, “Most shows are canceled after the first season. I was just pragmatic about it. I was thrilled that MGM and then History had picked it up for starters ... [but] I was pretty superstitious about how far I could go.”
Despite his pragmatic approach, Hirst wanted to tell his own story for as long as he could, which seemed to pay off as the show managed to attract larger audiences with each season and even survived the decision to kill off the main character in Season 4. Hirst shared, “I could never in my wildest dreams have anticipated that we would get to six seasons and 89 episodes.”