Fans have started floating the idea of the hit series, The Blacklist, returning for Season 11, this time on Netflix.
The beloved James Spader-led crime drama came to an end in July 2023, after a nearly decade-long run on NBC.
Following Spader's Raymond "Red" Reddington, the series saw him - a former government agent turned world's most wanted man - helping the FBI to catch their "blacklist" of America's (and eventually the globe's) criminal masterminds.
Throughout its run, the Sony-developed series was one of NBC's biggest, peaking at nearly 15 million average viewers in a single season (per Deadline), and earning mostly positive reviews across its 10 seasons.
Is The Blacklist Season 11 Happening?
Given the popularity of The Blacklist, audiences have begun to wonder if the hit series will ever come back for a Season 11.
As it currently stands, a potential eleventh season on Netflix or any other streamer does not seem likely.
Season 10 - which ended its run on linear TV in July 2023 - seemingly served as the end to the hit crime thriller.
According to showrunner John Eisendrath, Season 10 was "[the] conclusion" of The Blacklist story, as he told NBC in the days leading up to the Season 10 finale, working on the series had been "incredibly fun" but this would be "[the] final season:"
“After 10 years, hundreds of Blacklist cases, and more than 200 episodes produced, we’re honored to reach our conclusion. It’s been incredibly fun to create the strange, devious, and delightful Blacklisters to challenge Raymond Reddington and our FBI Task Force each week. We would like to thank everyone at NBC and Sony, our extraordinary crew who make the impossible happen every day, our endlessly inventive writers and producers, and our remarkable cast who brought life to these characters. We appreciate our dedicated fanbase who came along for this wonderful ride and are excited to share this final season with them.”
And this 'end of an era' feeling came through in Season 10's marketing. Taglines like, "It's time to say goodbye" (via Instagram) were used throughout the tenth season's run, indicating that - in fact - Season 11 was not in the cards.
When asked about the idea of coming back beyond Season 10 (like a revival from a streamer such as Netflix), star James Spader told NBC Insider, "If the show went beyond this year, it would turn into a very different show."
He added, "If [the series] went much further" it would become "less recognizable:"
“I think if the show went beyond this year, it would turn into a very different show. And I think that the thing that has been nice about this show was that we’ve never really had a really clear paradigm for the show. Tonally the show shifts a lot from episode to episode, and I think that even the show has taken strange turns, and I suspect that the show, if it went much further, would just become something that would be less recognizable to me.”
What Spader is referring to is the fact that his main character technically died at the end of The Blacklist Season 10 finale.
While the show could technically continue without him, many would argue Spader's 'Red' was the beating heart of the series, and any stories beyond that point would feel inherently un-Blacklist.
When Is The Blacklist Season 10 Coming to Netflix?
Thanks to a 2014 deal between Netflix and Sony (which saw the streamer offer up $2 million an episode to have the exclusive streaming rights to the series), Netflix has been the streaming home of The Blacklist.
This streaming del allowed new audiences to discover the show, giving it a life beyond linear television, and helping to turn it into the phenomenon it would become.
So, of course, fans are itching to know when the recently concluded Season 10 will come to the streaming giant.
Season 9 debuted on Netflix on October 6, 2022 in the US. This streaming drop came roughly four months (132 days) after Season 9 finished its run on network TV on May 27, 2022.
Using Season 9 as a template, Season 10 could come to the streaming platform at any moment.
Seeing as the series finale aired on July 13, 2023, on NBC, that would mean Season 10 should come to Netflix for US subscribers sometime around Wednesday, November 22.
No announcement has been made on that front as of yet. Perhaps the streamer is holding such a tentpole release for closer to the holiday season so fans can enjoy the final season at home over the festive season.
The Blacklist Seasons 1-9 are available to stream now on Netflix.
