The end of the SAG-AFTRA actors strike meant that TV shows were finally able to start moving forward again, and CBS wasted no time in announcing the new winter 2024 schedule for shows like NCIS, Fire Country, and Young Sheldon. Now, fans of the Big Bang Theory prequel have some bad news as well. The upcoming seventh season will also be the last, and the network has already revealed when the series finale will air.
Season 7 will premiere on Thursday, February 15 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and continue through the winter and spring until the series finale on Thursday, May 16. The last-ever episode will be a one-hour TV event that airs from 8 p.m. - 9 p.m. The new comes months after executive producer Steve Holland opened up about Young Sheldon potentially ending with the seventh season and a game-changing Season 6 finale disaster.
If CBS airs the full seventh season without any breaks, then that means a 15-episode final season of television's #1 comedy. That would also make it the shortest of the entire series, including the fourth season that was the first produced under COVID restrictions. That said, the network has not confirmed if Season 7 will air without any weeks off, and Young Sheldon was on the list of shows expected to start production on November 27 for a 13-episode season. Fans will have to wait for official word from CBS to know for sure how many more episodes of the Cooper family to look forward to.
If we assume a final season of 13-15 episodes, there's a lot to pack in if the sitcom is going to pay off on all of its Big Bang Theory nods and what Sheldon revealed when played by Jim Parsons on the original show. The other shoe still needs to drop about on George Sr.'s affair that Sheldon walked in on as a child but has not happened on Young Sheldon, and the Cooper patriarch probably should have already died if the spinoff was going to stick completely to TBBT timeline.
That said, creator Steve Molaro has previously spoken about being willing to break Big Bang Theory continuity, and fans have caught continuity errors before. At this point, it's hard to guess what exactly will be covered from TBBT in Young Sheldon's final season, what Young Sheldon will reveal that wasn't part of TBBT, and whether Jim Parsons will appear as adult Sheldon in the flesh before the end.
Personally, I'm just glad that the news that Season 7 will be the end was announced now rather than closer to the end. While it'll be sad for fans who don't want to say goodbye to a favorite show, at least there's no reason to doubt that the Young Sheldon team will have the time they need to wrap up the Cooper family's story the way they want to.
For now, you can revisit the first six seasons of Young Sheldon with Iain Armitage streaming with a Max subscription. Another Big Bang Theory spinoff is in the works at Max, and I'm guessing it's not going to be Young Adult Sheldon with a third actor playing Sheldon Cooper in his late teens-early 20s.
