Why New Amsterdam Season 6 Was Cancelled

Summary

• New Amsterdam season 6 never happened due to declining ratings, ultimately leading to the show’s premature ending.
• The COVID-19 pandemic affected New Amsterdam by shortening seasons and resulting in an episode being pulled due to similarity to real-life events.
• Despite its cancellation, New Amsterdam has a spinoff coming called New Amsterdam: Tomorrow, set 30 years after the original series with Luna as the protagonist.

New Amsterdam season 6 never happened, ending the show sooner than a lot of fans wanted. The drama series follows Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) after he becomes medical director at New Amsterdam Medical Center, a neglected facility and one of the oldest public hospitals in the United States. Goodwin, armed with the conviction that all patients deserve expert medical care, fights against the dysfunctional public health system, making New Amsterdam different from other medical dramas on TV.

New Amsterdam found itself in heated competition with Grey’s Anatomy and The Resident, but unlike these long-running shows, the series faced few character exits or major character deaths, save for Dr. Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher), the head of Neurology. Still, the show ended prematurely in the eyes of many. New Amsterdam was refreshingly unique in the world of medical dramas, depicting deeper storylines dealing with the hospital’s medical debt and the influence of the state on the facility itself. Unfortunately, this was not enough to save New Amsterdam season 6.

New Amsterdam Was Canceled Due To Declining Ratings

Despite A Strong Start, The Show Fell Behind It Competition

New Amsterdamseason 6 never happened due to poor ratings. The show was set on NBC’s Tuesday nights for its run and premiered its pilot to about 14 million viewers, including DVR recordings, with a rating of 1.8. The rating dropped over season 1, ending at 0.9 for the finale. Throughout New Amsterdam seasons 1-5, ratings and viewership on the network continued to dwindle. Despite New Amsterdam‘s best episodes, the show didn’t attract a huge audience.

The
New Amsterdam
series finale brought in 5.2 million viewers.

The New Amsterdam series finale brought in 5.2 million viewers, a far cry from the original 14 million, and its rating plummeted to 0.3. The show couldn’t compete with Grey’s Anatomy, which had several spinoffs, or The Resident, which maintained its rating across its six seasons. It was announced during the New Amsterdam season 4 mid-season break that season 5 would be the show’s last. If there was any indication before this, the seasons’ oscillating episode counts might have been a clue.

How The COVID-19 Pandemic Affected New Amsterdam

The Show Struggled In The Aftermath Of Shortened Seasons

New Amsterdam was hit in two major ways that could’ve been partially responsible for pushing the show in the wrong direction. In March 2020, NBC Universal announced all television shows’ production schedules would be suspended until further notice. This shortened the series’ season 2 episode count from 22 to 18, then to 14 for season 3. While the series returned to its 22-episode slate in season 4, New Amsterdam never really recovered from these brief seasons, but something else happened as well.

New Amsterdam
season 2 had an episode pulled from its lineup.

New Amsterdam season 2 had an episode pulled from its lineup in March 2020, as it depicted an influenza outbreak that was scarily similar to the real-life pandemic. The episode never aired. Series creator David Schulner supported the decision, saying (via Deadline):

“The world needs a lot less fiction right now, and a lot more facts.”

New Amsterdam was one of many shows ending in 2023, but the glaring problem was the show’s ratings and viewership numbers, which were on a steady decline from season 2 onward.

How Did New Amsterdam End?

The Show Offered Happy Endings For Its Cast Of Characters

Because the show was not about curing patients and mystery illnesses, and more about the hospital industry as a business, it gave New Amsterdam a chance to do something different with its series finale. Ahead of its airing, showrunner David Schulner promised a wild ending:

”
There are a lot of twists and turns in the finale… a lot of reveals and reversals. You’re not going to know where it lands until the very final moment of the episode,
”

The series concludes with Dr. Max Goodwin leaving the hospital. This allows fans to follow New Amsterdam through his eyes and when he leaves, there is nothing left to say. The final episode sees Max’s last day at the hospital before he leaves to run the Global Health Police at the World Health Organization in Geneva. The finale had a twist where Max learned Helen made unethical decisions to save him from cancer, making him realize how important she is to him.

Viewers meet Luna, who they think is Max’s replacement, but is his daughter.

There was another twist where viewers meet Luna, who they think is Max’s replacement, but is his daughter — as an adult in the future. She follows in his footsteps and does so because of his actions in New Amsterdam and how he helped people. The finale also wraps up stories for the supporting cast. Dr. Wilder replaces Max, Dr. Frome gets back together with his husband, Dr. Reynolds confesses his love for his girlfriend, and Dr. Bloom reconciles with her sister.

Everyone got a happy ending, and even if Helen never returned to tie things up with Max, New Amsterdam gave everyone a fitting finale.

There’s A New Amsterdam Spinoff Coming

The Show’s Finale Set Up New Amsterdam: Tomorrow

Despite season 6 not happening, fans will be able to stay in the New Amsterdam universe thanks to a new spinoff series. In fact, the sequel show was set up in the New Amsterdam finale with the reveal of Luna following her father’s medical journey as an adult. New Amsterdam: Tomorrow will be set 30 years after the original series ended and follow Luna’s career at the hospital. Though Molly Griggs played adult Luna in the New Amsterdam finale, no actors are attached to the new spinoff series at this point.

Given that the series was canceled, it is surprising New Amsterdam received a spinoff, but that is a testament to fans’ reaction’ to the show’s ending. With Luna as the new protagonist, it seems like New Amsterdam: Tomorrow will honor a lot about the original series and Max’s approach to the job, which was the heart of the story. However, the sequel is also set to stand out among medical dramas, including New Amsterdam, with its setting in the future, as it is set to explore the impact artificial intelligence will have on the medical profession.