How Many Seasons Of New Amsterdam Are There
NBC’s medical drama New Amsterdam ran for five seasons and, unfortunately, won’t be getting a sixth installment. Here’s what happened with season 6.
New Amsterdam: A Unique Medical Drama
New Amsterdam primarily followed Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) after he became the 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, fought against the dysfunctional public health system, making New Amsterdam different as it chose to explore territory not often touched by medical dramas.
New Amsterdam found itself in heated competition with other shows of its genre, such as Grey’s Anatomy and The Resident. Unlike similar long-running procedural shows, the series faced nary a character exit or major character death, save for Dr. Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher), the head of Neurology whose actor left the series after season 3 to focus on his wife’s health. New Amsterdam was refreshingly unique in the world of medical dramas, depicting wider storylines dealing with things like the hospital’s medical debt and the influence of the state on the facility itself. Unfortunately, these offerings were not enough to allow for New Amsterdam season 6.
New Amsterdam Was Cancelled Due To Declining Ratings
Unfortunately, New Amsterdam season 6 was canceled due to poor ratings, with season 5 acting as the final installment. New Amsterdam was comfortably set in NBC’s Tuesday night 10 p.m. EST time slot for all of its run and premiered its pilot episode to about 14 million viewers, including DVR recordings, with a rating of 1.8. The 1.8 steadily dropped over New Amsterdam season 1, ending at a 0.9 for the season 1 finale. Over the course of New Amsterdam seasons 1-5, both ratings and viewership on the network continued to dwindle. Despite great episodes, New Amsterdam didn’t have a huge audience.
The New Amsterdam series finale only brought in 5.2 million viewers, a far cry from the original 14 million, and its rating plummeted to 0.3. The show simply couldn’t compete with the likes of Grey’s Anatomy, which had several spinoffs, or The Resident, which maintained its rating across its six seasons despite time slot changes. Therefore, it was announced during the New Amsterdam season 4 mid-season break that season 5 would, unfortunately, be the show’s last.
How The COVID Pandemic Affected New Amsterdam
The entire movie and television industry ended up negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. That being said, New Amsterdam was hit in two major ways that could’ve been partially responsible for pushing the show in the wrong direction. First off, in March 2020, NBC Universal announced that all television shows’ production schedules would be suspended until further notice, including New Amsterdam. This shortened the series’ season 2 episode count from 22 to 18, then 18 to 14 for season 3. While the series returned to its 22-episode slate for season 4, the show never really recovered from these brief seasons — but something else happened as well.
New Amsterdam season 2 had an episode pulled from its lineup in March 2020, further shortening the season, as it depicted an influenza outbreak that was scarily similar to the real-life pandemic. The episode was never aired, as series creator David Schulner said, “The world needs a lot less fiction right now, and a lot more facts” (via Deadline). New Amsterdam was one of the many shows ending in 2023, and there were a lot of factors that led up to this point. However, the glaring problem was really the show’s ratings and viewership numbers, which were on a steady decline from season 2 onward.
How Did New Amsterdam End?
Because New Amsterdam was not so much about curing patients and mystery illnesses, and more about the hospital industry as a business, it gave the series a chance to do something different with its series finale. That is what the New Amsterdam series finale did. 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,” he declared before it aired.
With little shock, the New Amsterdam story ended when Dr. Max Goodwin’s story at the hospital concluded. This allowed fans to follow the hospital through his eyes and when he left, there was nothing left to say. The final episode saw Max’s last day at the hospital before he left to run the Global Health Police at the World Health Organization in Geneva. The finale also had a twist moment where Max learned Helen made some unethical decisions to save him from cancer, which made him realize how important she was to him.
There was another twist where viewers met Luna, who they thought was Max’s replacement, but was actually his daughter as an adult in the future. She followed his footsteps and did so because of his actions while working at New Amsterdam and the decisions he made to help people. The finale also wrapped up stories for the supporting cast, including Dr. Wilder replacing Max, Dr. Frome reconciling with his estranged husband, Dr. Reynolds confessing his love for his girlfriend, and Dr. Bloom reconciling 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.
FAQs
1. Will there be a season 6 of New Amsterdam?
Unfortunately, New Amsterdam was canceled after season 5, and there won’t be a season 6 due to declining ratings and viewership.
2. How many episodes are there in New Amsterdam?
New Amsterdam has a total of 89 episodes, spanning across its five seasons.
3. What sets New Amsterdam apart from other medical dramas?
New Amsterdam explored wider storylines such as the hospital’s medical debt and the influence of the state, making it refreshingly unique compared to other medical dramas.
4. How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact New Amsterdam?
The COVID-19 pandemic led to production schedule suspensions and an episode depicting an influenza outbreak being pulled, further affecting the show’s direction.
5. How did New Amsterdam end?
The series finale saw Dr. Max Goodwin’s story at the hospital conclude, with a twist involving his daughter as an adult in the future and wrapped up stories for the supporting cast, giving everyone a fitting finale.
6. What is New Amsterdam based on?
The series is based on the book Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Dr. Eric Manheimer, who was the director of the hospital for 15 years.