Well, it’s not like we were hoping the season would come out early.

Last year, the impact of WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes on the industry

was less noticeable — sure, many highly anticipated projects were postponed indefinitely,

but the second half of 2023 was still rich with high-octane releases produced before the strikes began filling the pop culture airwaves.

The effects are being felt now, in 2024, as new seasons of favorite shows may come out much later than expected because of all this. In particular, the effects have been felt on Netflix ‘s flagship series, as the streaming service announced that most of its popular shows won’t see the light of day until 2025.

Brace yourselves, dear Virgin River fans, because it looks like the new season of our favorite cozy drama won’t be out for at least another year.

Showrunners’ Initial Promises and Fan Hopes

Even before the strikes ended, the production team was incredibly enthusiastic and eager to get Virgin River back into production, but many of them realized that everything depended on how soon the unions would sign contracts with the AMPTP. For example, executive producer and writer Richard Keith claimed in September 2023 that if the strikes did not end as soon as possible, Season 6 would not be released until 2025.

‘All I want for Christmas is [for] my two… unions to get a fair deal from the AMPTP. If they don’t hurry up there won’t be any Virgin River on Netflix until 2025…’ He wrote on his Instagram account.

However, showrunner Patrick Sean Smith was far more optimistic than his counterpart in November 2023, after the strikes had already ended, telling Glamour that he would do his best to get the new season out as early as 2024.

‘I’m going to do my darnedest to make sure that doesn’t happen,’ the showrunner answered a question about whether we should expect the show in 2025 and not earlier.

We were all desperately hoping that the new season would be out by November/December. Unfortunately, a later update made it clear that this was unlikely to be the case, as filming was scheduled for February 2 through May 17.

Production and Estimated Release Window

It typically requires approximately 7-10 months from the shooting of Virgin River to post-production (which, unlike the VFX-oriented series, doesn’t require a lot of work) and release: Season 4 was aired nearly eight months after filming ended, and Season 5 was released ten months later. The upcoming season will be shorter than the last ones, consisting of 10 episodes, similar to the first three seasons, so it should definitely be expected in November or December 2024. However, a new update suggests otherwise.

According to Deadline, Virgin River Season 6 won’t be released until 2025, like most of Netflix’s other flagship series, including One Piece, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Sweet Magnolias, and others. In the case of Virgin River, the reason may be due to weather conditions in British Columbia that significantly delayed the production start date.

‘We’re going to start as soon as the Vancouver weather allows. So hopefully in the spring is what I’ve been hearing,’ Breckenridge told Deadline in 2023.

If the production team really intends to wait until spring (the cast and crew’s social media has neither confirmed nor denied this so far), then Season 6 could even be scheduled for the summer of 2025, similar to when Seasons 3 and 4 were released.Another reason could be that Netflix will decide to draw more attention to Virgin River in time for the holidays and release Season 6 sometime in January 2025. Much better than summer, but still not 2024!