Heartstopper has returned to Netflix for season 3, and with it, no declaration that this is either the final season or season 4 is coming. Why? Because it’s complicated, and is likely to come down to the source material.
Even though we likely to say Netflix cancels things too early (as it often does), I don’t think that’s the concern here, even as the show has debuted somewhat low on the top 10 list for season 3. It still has perfect critic scores and is still cheap to produce relative to others. So, season 4?
Creator of Heartstopper, Alice Oseman, is the lynchpin here. Her web comic/graphic novel series has been the source material for the project where volumes 1-3 were used for seasons 1 and 2, and volumes 4-5 were for book three. But that’s all of them. For now.
Oseman is writing a sixth and final book, however, and now it’s a matter of getting it finished in time for a reasonably timed production of Heartstopper season 4, as she told The Guardian last month.
“I’m only 50 pages in, but I know what’s going to happen, what all the dialogue is going to be, and now I’m just sitting down and drawing it, which is my favorite bit,” she told the outlet. “I’m really excited about what’s going to happen towards the end of the story, but it’s also very bittersweet. I also feel it’s absolutely the right time for it to end. It’s very sad, but it’s time.”
“I will most likely be drawing vol. 6 simultaneously while writing the season 4 scripts, even if we haven’t been renewed,” she said. “And the other thing that I have to keep in mind is that I really, extremely, devoutly need the volume 6 book to come out before season 4 comes out, so people experience the end of the story from the books first. So there’s a timer counting down now.”
That is…a lot of juggling going on at once, and again, Alice Oseman is not just the creator of the source material she has written every episode of the show, all 24 of them with no co-writers. That’s kind of insane.
It very much stands to reason Heartstopper will get a season 4 despite no official renewal yet, just to make sure it can finish things off and not upset a giant fanbase and talented creator. But the timeline here, given Oseman’s ongoing work, remains unclear.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
