The Magicians has been renewed for a fourth season on the Syfy network. The long-running NBCUniversal-owned Syfy, formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel, has had a successful recent run with its own original scripted programs. In addition to The Magicians, the network has gotten multi-season runs out of 12 Monkeys, The Expanse, and Z Nation. But The Magicians, in particular, has enjoyed perhaps the most success of any series.

Syfy has good reason to want to keep The Magicians around. It's been among the network's highest-rated shows, and it will want to maintain some continuity in coming years as 12 Monkeys approaches its final season. The Magicians, which follows a group of students who discover that the fantasy world from their favorite stories known as Fillory is real and use their magical abilities to fight evil forces, will be sticking around.

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THR first reported Syfy's decision to renew The Magicians for a fourth season on Wednesday. Season 3 is still in progress. But the network is expecting the show to be ready for a fourth season with 13 episodes in 2019. The aforementioned ratings have been at the top of the class for Syfy; The Magicians has been the network's highest-rated show among adults 18-49 for the past three years. As for other shows up for renewal at Syfy, THR notes that Tremors, Deadly Class and Run for Your Life have yet to be decided upon.

Much of The Magicians' success can be attributed to the fact that it's had strong source material to draw from in its three seasons. The first two runs of the Syfy series focused on the first two books in Lev Grossman's series, 2009's The Magicians and 2011's The Magician King. The third season contains elements of the third book, The Magician's Land.

This move is a no-brainer for Syfy. Considering The Magicians' continually strong ratings with the all-important 18-49 demo, the network almost had no choice but to keep it going. That Syfy committed to a fourth season even as season 3 was barely half over is a testament to the show's success and the network's confidence in it as a product.

The question moving forward for The Magicians is how much further it can stretch out the content of Grossman's acclaimed, best-selling novels. The sharp decline of M. Night Shyamalan's Wayward Pines is an example of how a series can really suffer when it transitions from adaptation to original storytelling. That's a risk that Syfy is clearly willing to take with its top-rated scripted series.

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The Magicians continues with "All That Josh" on Wednesday, March 7 at 9 p.m. on Syfy.

Source: THR