Wynonna Earp Isn’t Alone: The TV Shows With the Longest Breaks Between Seasons

Warning to all revenants: She’s back.

After nearly two years off the air, Wynonna Earp leaves behind TV purgatory and returns to…well, Purgatory, with the titular heroine back to defend her hometown for another season. 

The path to getting the Syfy fan-favorite back on the air was a bit of a bizarre one. The cable network renewed the show all the way back in 2018, just one day after season three premiered, but when the time the show would normally return to production came and went, it was clear something was wrong. Thanks to the show’s unique co-production model, financial troubles at IDW Entertainment—the publishing house responsible for the show’s comic book source material—meant that everything needed to be put on hold. At least, that is, until new producing partners could be secured.

Once Cineflix Studios came aboard to help lighten IDW Entertainment’s load in the summer of 2019, production was officially back on track with a summer 2020 premiere date.

“We are absolutely thrilled that we get to make more Wynonna Earp, and are grateful to our networks and partners for working hard to ensure we can,” Emily Andras, showrunner and executive producer, said in a statement at the time. “This is an enormous testament to our passionate and fierce fans, the Earpers, who remind us every day how to fight like hell for the things you love with wit, ferocity and kindness.”

Of course, the show was hit with another bump in the road after filming resumed in January of this year. As the novel coronavirus spread across the globe, it forced production to halt on March 16—meaning that the new season premiering on Syfy on July 26 still won’t be complete. But if we’ve learned one thing throughout this whole ordeal, it’s that you can’t keep Wynonna Earp down for too long. 

In honor of the show’s long-awaited return, take a look at the good company it finds itself in on the list of TV shows with the lengthiest hiatuses. (A list that’s about to grow exponentially thanks to COVID-19, but that’s a story for another day…)

The hit Netflix series kept fans waiting a whopping 21 months between seasons two and three. Hopefully, the wait for season four—allegedly due sometime in 2020—won’t be nearly as long.

While Rami Malek was off becoming an Oscar winner, fans of the USA thriller that made him a household name were forced to wait 22 months for the premiere of the fourth and final season.

As production work soared and episode counts dropped on the HBO smash hit in the latter half of its eight season run, the length of hiatus between seasons only grew. Fans had to wait 13 months between seasons six and seven, compared to the typical 10. Meanwhile, the wait for the final season ballooned to 20 months.

Viewers of AMC’s Breaking Bad prequel were made to wait 16 months before it returned for season five.

The period drama that put AMC on the map took a lengthy break between its fourth and fifth seasons. The season four finale aired in October 2010, while the fifth season didn’t arrive until March 2012, 17 months later.

Between seasons five and six of the Bravo reality series, contract negotiations with cast members became so prolonged that the show was forced off its traditional production schedule and fans were made to wait 17 months for the new season to begin airing.

While Teresa Giudice, the show’s anchor cast member, served her 11-month prison sentence, the Bravo series suspended production until her release, making the wait between seasons six and seven a total of 20 months.

Fans of Donald Glover‘s acclaimed FX comedy know a thing or two about waiting for new episodes. The hiatus between seasons one and two lasted 16 months. And if the third season finally arrives in January 2021, as promised prior to the coronavirus pandemic, it will have been 32 months since season two ended.

The show with the unrivaled longest hiatus on this list, the HBO comedy waited an astounding six years, from 2011 to 2017, for Larry David to find inspiration for a ninth season. It made the 25 month wait for season 10 feel like a blink of an eye by comparison.

Before audiences could find out how Carrie Mathison’s story would end, they had to wait 22 months for the Showtime thriller to return for its eighth and final season in 2020.

The wait between seasons two and three of HBO’s trippy sci-fi series lasted a total of 21 months.

Fans of HBO’s iconic mob drama were made to wait 15 months between seasons four and five, with 21 months standing between seasons five and six.

When the fourth season of Issa Rae‘s HBO comedy began airing in April 2020, it was 19 months since the season three finale aired.

While the Syfy cult-classic may not have the longest hiatus on this list, the reasoning behind the almost two-year gap between seasons three and four certainly warrants inclusion. Despite a renewal from the cable network coming through the day after season three began airing, financial troubles at IDW Entertainment, the publishing house responsible for both the source material and a good chunk of the show’s budget, meant that production was delayed until new production partners could come aboard and help fund the fourth season. In early July, 2019—a full year after season four was ordered—it was announced that Cineflix Studios and Canada’s Crave network had joined the show and filming would soon get underway. Of course, production was then impacted by coronavirus, so when the show returns on July 26, 2020, it will be a truncated run until production can safely resume once more.

Wynonna Earp premieres Sunday, July 26 at 10 p.m. on Syfy.

(E! and Syfy are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)