'The 100' on Netflix Canceled: Why There Will Not Be a Season 8

The 100's most recent season finished in early October on The CW, and now the sci-fi show's most recent 16 episodes have arrived on Netflix in the U.S. Those episodes have been a hit with viewers, and the series is currently at number four on the streamer's top 10 series chart. This means that plenty of viewers have made their way to the end of the episodes and are eagerly anticipating Season 9 of The 100.

Those viewers will be sorely disappointed. The show is not coming back for Season 8, meaning that the new episodes on Netflix are the last ever episodes of the hit CW show. In fact, The 100 was canceled back in August 2019, when it was announced the show would be ending (very suitably) after its 100th episode.

According to an interview with show creator Jason Rothenberg and Deadline, he and his writers had been planning to end the show after Season 7 for the last few years. He told the website, "once it started to feel like it was in it for the long run, we didn't feel too confident about that ending until roughly the end of season five.

"That is around the time where we made a pitch to the studio network to let us write to an ending, like can we end the show at the end of season seven. At which point, we really did begin to formulate our end game."

Though there will be no Season 8 of The 100 on Netflix or The CW, this may not be the last we see of the show's world. The 100 Season 7, Episode 8, titled "Anaconda," acted not just as a flashback episode, but also a pilot for a new prequel that could be coming soon to "The CW, HBO Max or Netflix" (as Rothenberg told TVLine).

Speaking of the status of that prequel to Deadline, Rothenberg said: "What I can say is in terms of whether or not it's going to happen is that there are discussions that are still happening at the highest level...there is a chance, a good chance, I guess, that it could come back."

Per TVLine, the current working title for this prequel is The 100: Second Dawn, and it would be set two years after the apocalyptic event that wiped out most of humanity (The 100 proper is set 100 hundred years after it). He has also teased that the prequel would also flashback even earlier. He told TVLine: "I'd like to do Lost-style flashback episodes to pre-apocalypse times. I really want to shoot in restaurants, bars and homes, and not have to be in the middle of the woods all the time."

Asked by Collider why he was bringing the original series to an end, meanwhile, the showrunner said, "[100 episodes is] a long time to be telling the story of one group of characters. We also didn't want to overstay our welcome and be a show that was making episodes into Season 10 and 12, and beyond, just to do it."

The 100 Seasons 1 to 7 are streaming now on Netflix; The 100 prequel has not been greenlit yet.