‘Vikings’ Season 6 Renewal — Everything You Need To Know, Plus, New Season 5 Image

It is the news that all Vikings fans have been waiting for — History Channel has officially renewed the series for Season 6. Although, it was predicted prior to the announcement thanks to some early indicators by the cast and crew of the drama series.

Prior to the official announcement about the Season 6 renewal, there had been some early signs the History Channel would renew the program. A casting call in August was a pretty good indicator that Season 6 would go ahead.

Along with this, one of the show’s actors, Katheryn Winnick, has posted another indicator that Vikings would be renewed. Last week, she posted an image to her Instagram story that showed herself along with a Season 6 script.

Prior to that, at San Diego Comic-Con, the show’s creator, Michael Hirst, revealed he was already writing the scripts for Season 6 of Vikings, even if History Channel had not yet officially renewed it.

As Variety points out, Season 6 of Vikings will have 20 episodes, just like Seasons 4 and 5. Production for Season 6 of Vikings will begin in the fall on location in Ireland.

Along with this exciting news, the press release from History Channel also reveals that Katheryn Winnick will make her “directorial debut” in Season 6. The actress, who has been nominated for her work in Vikings for “Best Supporting Actress” at the 2015 Critic’s Choice Television Awards and “Best Performance by a Lead Dramatic Actress” at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards, will head one episode of Season 6 of Vikings. As yet, there is no indicator which episode this will be.

Eli Lehrer, Executive Vice President of Programming for History Channel, made the official announcement. He also issued the following statement about the Season 6 renewal of Vikings.

“Vikings has creatively sailed to monumental lengths. The series has evolved from early raids in England, to the heart-stopping death of Ragnar Lothbrok, to the fierce battles of the Great Heathen Army, and now we’ll see the sons of Ragnar exploring and conquering the known world. Michael Hirst has only scratched the surface of his epic saga. We look forward to continuing our partnership with one of the greatest writers in this era of Peak TV and entertaining our viewers with 40 new episodes over the next two seasons.”

Vikings has been a huge success for the History channel, so it is no surprise the network has renewed the historical drama series. Across all platforms, the last season of Vikings averaged 7.8 million viewers per episode. Vikings is a top five drama across ad supported cable and averaged 4.1 million total viewers last season in Live+7 delivery. Additionally, the series reached 34.3 million total viewers in linear Live+7, the press release reveals.

Michael Hirst also released a statement about the renewal.

“It has been my pleasure and my privilege to work with History and our partner MGM over five seasons and 69 episodes of Vikings. Now we are ready to begin production of a 20 episode season six that will deliver a huge and unexpected revelation to our audience. There are many reasons why I love this show, not least for the commitment and creativity of everyone involved in making it, but perhaps even more important is the spirit that drives this production – one of the happiest, most collaborative and most authentic productions I have ever been involved with. And so we sail on.”

Season 5 of Vikings will premiere on the History Channel on November 29 with a special two-hour premiere episode at 9 p.m. ET/PT followed by eight episodes airing every Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Season 6 will be broken up into two parts, like previous seasons of the show. The second half of Season 5 will air in 2018.

Finally, History Channel has also released a new image for Season 5 of Vikings. It features Lagertha and Torvi (Georgia Hirst). Season 4 of Vikings saw Torvi critically injured after an attack on Kattegat. However, the Season 5 trailer has already indicated Torvi survives.

Are you excited to learn that History Channel has renewed Vikings for Season 6? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below.

[Featured Image by Jonathan Hession/History Channel]