Shadowhunters season 3 and the great renewal mystery

Was Shadowhunters renewed for a season 3 or not? It’s a good question, and one that understandably has raised many others.

Let’s start by going back about a week ago, which is when SpoilerTV reported that Freeform had “quietly” renewed the Mortal Instruments adaptation and that production was going to be kicking off in August. This was exciting news, and we do trust the site’s sources; they’ve earned that over the years with other reporting.

So, with this being said, why hasn’t the network confirmed anything just yet? Given that they had a prime opportunity to do so earlier this week when they released new trailers for many of their new shows, the mystery only deepens from our end.

At this point, we do think that Shadowhunters will be coming back.for a third season. It makes sense that it would. While the ratings in terms of live+same day viewers are not sensational, we’re in an era at this point where such a tiny sliver of people watch a show live and networks have to look for other ways to monetize, including streaming deals and international sales. This show also can make some money still from DVR recordings, given that not everyone misses all of the advertisements there. It’s just relatively difficult in order to properly gauge its impact.

At this point, we wonder if Freeform will officially announce a renewal at some point closer to the show’s midseason premiere as a way to drum up a little bit more excitement for it. Or, maybe they will take advantage of an opportunity to make some sort of video about it featuring the cast that will go viral. After all, the show’s immense social-media fandom is one of the biggest reasons at the moment to keep the show around. It draws astronomical numbers on Twitter in particular, especially in contrast to its total number of domestic viewers. For a network in 2017, it would be a pretty impossible thing to pull the plug on a show that is generating that level of fandom and publicity.

Once there is a little bit more news out there regarding Shadowhunters, we’re going to provide it for you over at the link here. Stay tuned. (For the record, if the renewal sticks we imagine that it would premiere once more in early 2018.)

Also, let us know in the comments how excited you are for a potential third season of the show! (Photo: Freeform.)