‘True Blood’ Announces Final 7th Season, To End In 2014

“True Blood” is meeting its true death. Cable channel HBO has announced that the popular U.S. supernatural drama is coming to an ending with a 10-episode seventh season in 2014.

The Emmy Award-winning show, which is based on “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” novels by Charlaine Harris, has recently concluded its sixth season in August. In July, it was announced that it would be renewed for another season, but fans did not anticipate the upcoming episodes to be the last ones.

“True Blood has been nothing short of a defining show for HBO,” HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo said in a statement.

“Alan Ball took the books by Charlaine Harris, assembled a brilliant cast led by the magnificent Anna Paquin in the role of Sookie Stackhouse, and crafted a show that has taken its many devoted fans on an unforgettable journey.

“Alan passed the baton to Brian Buckner, who led our fantastic writers and crew in crafting a spectacular sixth season, and he will lead us through the seventh and final season of this amazing show. Together with its legions of fans, it will be hard to say goodbye to the residents of Bon Temps, but I look forward to what promises to be a fantastic final chapter of this incredible show.”

“Finally, a huge thank you to the most passionate fans in television. As we take a final walk through Bon Temps together, we will do our very best to bring Sookie’s story to a close with heart, imagination and, of course, fun,” Buckner added.

The show stars Paquin as the telepathic waitress Sookie who later turned out to be a faery, and centres on her adventures and romantic interests, mainly with the vampires Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard).

In the recently concluded sixth season, the vampires and humans have formed a partnership of sorts, in which the vampires provide protection to the humans, while the latter give them blood for food. But as with all the previous season ender episodes before it, the show ended with a cliffhanger, with the characters introduced to a new breed of Hep V-infected vampires and Eric seemingly met his true death after burning naked under the sun.

Buckner assured fans, however, that Eric would come back in the seventh season.

Read related: ‘True Blood’ Season 7 Spoilers: Is Eric Dead? Plus Bill-Sookie-Alcide Love Triangle

A definite date for the final season premiere has not yet been announced, though HBO mentioned it would be in the summer, which starts in June in the U.S.