‘New Amsterdam’ Boss on Final Season: ‘You Want to End Where You Begin’
The bad news: There’s only one more season of New Amsterdam. The good news: There’s plenty of time to give the NBC medical drama — and its fans — closure.
“For Season 5, you want to end where you begin,” executive producer David Schulner told TV Insider recently. “I think for us, let’s go back to that energy of Season 1 and look at where we started all the characters and make sure we end them in a place where they began. So for Bloom [Janet Montgomery], it was about her addiction.” You can also look forward to meeting Bloom’s sister, “so her mom [played by Gina Gershon] can’t be far behind,” the EP teased.
As for the others, Season 1, “for Iggy [Tyler Labine], was about his sense of self. And for Reynolds [Jocko Sims], it was about wanting a family,” Schulner previewed. “So looking at those core issues that we set up for all of our characters in Season 1, how can we bring those things to a conclusion in Season 5, knowing it’s our last?”
We’ll have to wait to see what the future holds for Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) and Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman), whose finale wedding didn’t happen when she called him from London and told him, “I can’t.”
While so much is up in the air about Max’s life, could we perhaps know if the final season will recreate that very memorable scene of him in the auditorium addressing (and firing) everyone in the series premiere? “That’s a good one,” Schulner said, but noted, “We don’t shoot at that auditorium anymore. But we would always love to get that auditorium back, even though it’s our crew’s least favorite place to shoot.”
Ralph Bavaro/NBC
And if you’re sad you’ll have to say goodbye to New Amsterdam soon, you’re not the only one. “It’s disappointing,” Labine admitted. “When we first got the news, I think we were all a little bit shocked.” But at least there is still one season still to go.
There is “pressure,” however, the star shared. “Look, nobody here wants to make anything less than the best season of TV that we could possibly make next year. There’s no, ‘We’ll get ’em in Season 6.’ This is it. We have 13 episodes left to tell this story and to wrap up these stories. And as a fan of the show, it’s bittersweet. We got five seasons of TV that I think were really interesting and challenging and different. It’s also, there goes my favorite show. But it’ll exist forever on streaming platforms and we can go back and visit it.”
Labine noted that the series will end with 93 episodes, “which is nothing to shake a stick at. That’s a good run for a show, for any show. As an actor and one who’s about to be unemployed, I’m a little scared,” he laughed. “It was nice to have some stability on this show. And I love the people I work with and I’ve made really good lifelong friends with everybody, from top to bottom. So I’m really sad that that’s the end of the show. But all that means to me is that I’m gonna double down on my efforts. I’m gonna do the best, best, best job I can do with Iggy next season. With everything that the show has to offer, I’ll be there putting in my absolute best, which I always did, but it feels a little more poetic. It’s the end of the show. So it’s like, what can we squeeze out of it?”
New Amsterdam, Fifth and Final Season, TBA, NBC
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