Young Sheldon has been renewed for seven seasons already. After season #5 Iain Armitage will turn 14 . Young Sheldon season #4 is by far the most popular sitcom on CBS with 30% more viewers than "The Neighborhood". It has double the viewers of the most popular sitcom on ABC "The Conners" or NBC "Mr Mayor".
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Originally Posted by astrohip
1) What are the screen credits telling you about his death in S5?
2) Is there some point I'm missing to showing the lead actors and episode counts? I'm having trouble connecting that to George's death, or to anything, for that matter.
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It has to do with the way actor's contracts work. You are either a series "principal" or a "recurring part". A "principal" actor signs a contract for a certain number of years (minimum five) and then the actor is free to move on to get another part. I was checking to see if George was in every episode.
Normally, writers make the decision to kill a character after the show has started. In this case, it was known that George would die from the pilot. What would make sense would be to sign the actor for five years, and all other actors for seven years, so that they would have time to process Young Sheldon's life after his father had passed.
After seven years it essentially becomes a business decision about continuing the show. If the show is still popular, the actors agents begin to request huge salary increases for further seasons. In order to meet those salary demands, the show can't possibly make a profit on first run, so they gamble that that additional epsiodes will return more money in syndication. TBBT actors were paid $1 million per episode starting in season 8. Friends actors were paid $750,000 in seasons seven and eight, and $1 million in seasons nine and ten.
There is a slight possibility that George will live through season #6, but I doubt that the writers believe that is enough time to write the changes in Sheldon's life caused by his father's death. While it is probable the show will continue past season #7, nobody can count on that with certainty.
No sitcom in the last half century has run to 300 episodes.
Even if Young Sheldon is still the highest ranked sitcom on television after 7 years, the viewership of broadcast television may not be high enough to justify six mega-salaries.
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