Wake up members of Carly Shay’s nation — the iCarly revival has been canceled after three seasons.
“iCarly will not be returning for a fourth season on Paramount+. The series had a great three-season run and delivered on what fans really wanted to see with Carly and Freddie finally getting together,” a Paramount+ spokesperson told Us Weekly in a Wednesday, October 4, statement. “We want to thank the entire cast, the writers, directors and producers along with the whole crew for their dedication, creativity and talent.”
The rebooted series premiered in June 2021 and followed an adult Carly (Miranda Cosgrove) 10 years after the original show’s series finale. Carly finds herself reunited with her brother, Spencer (Jerry Trainer) and longtime friend — and cameraman — Freddie (Nathan Cress), ready to start a new chapter of her life by revamping her once-popular web show. Laci Mosley also joined the cast as Carly’s new BFF Harper, along with Jaidyn Triplett, who portrayed Freddie’s stepdaughter, Millicent.
After the initial success of iCarly, which ran from 2007 to 2012 on Nickelodeon, the reboot was ordered in 2020 and produced by Nickelodeon Studios and Awesomeness. Ali Schouten served as showrunner and executive producer alongside Cosgrove, with Trainor and Alissa Vradenburg serving as producers. Cress, meanwhile, made his iCarly directorial debut with the season 1 episode “iCan Fix It Myself.”
While many revivals, reboots and spinoffs from the ‘90s and early ‘00s have garnered mixed reviews in recent years, iCarly’s revamped framing was an instant hit with fans — both old and new — who felt the updated series captured the same sentiment of the original while allowing the characters to settle into their adult selves. However, even the cast was hesitant to jump back in and mess with their well-preserved legacy.
“To be perfectly honest, when I was first asked about maybe coming back, all the first talks about it started a couple years ago. And I was like, ‘No, we’re never gonna do that,’” Cosgrove told Variety in June 2022. “And I called [my original costars] Jerry and Nathan and they were like, ‘No we shouldn’t do that.’ And then we just kept talking about it.”
Cosgrove noted that once they came up with the idea of the show, they realized that “all the people that originally watched” iCarly were “kids who grew up and are adults now,” too.
“We were like, ‘Why don’t we make the show for them?’ They’re the people that loved the show originally and they’re really who this is for,” she explained. “So that really gave us a lot of direction after we realized that we were all on board and wanted to do that. And it started to get really fun after that.”
Their instincts paid off — the show has a 100 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes for its 3 seasons — and gave fans the perfect balance of nostalgia mixed with more adult humor. It also delivered something else fans had spent a decade waiting for: the long-awaited Carly and Freddie romance.
The pair’s friendship slowly blossomed into something deeper, with the season 3 — and now defacto series — finale ending with the couple deciding to tie the knot. It also teased one of the show’s most anticipated moments with Carly and Spencer’s mother finally being introduced. While the mysterious matriarch appears amid the wedding festivities, her face is never revealed — leaving fans reeling in anticipation of a season 4.
“iCarly really got canceled after THAT cliffhanger. They really had us wait years for Carly and Spencer to finally mention their mom and we don’t even get to see her and we’ll never get that Creddie marriage IT’S SO OVER,” one fan wrote via X on Wednesday.
“iCarly was genuinely the best reboot we’ve ever gotten for a TV show and they go ahead and cancel it at its peak,” another argued, while a third said: “It’s just so unfair to fans, the characters and the crew.”
Others have hopes that Paramount+ will bring the series back for a final movie — or brief fourth installment — to give the story closure. “At least give us iCarly the movie to give this universe a proper ending,” one person begged via X, tagging the streaming service. Another added, “I don’t get why iCarly has been canceled what is the reason to not give us a few more episodes it deserves a real ending not cliffhangers.”
Following news of the cancelation, the iCarly writers room took to social media to thank the fans for their unwavering support. “It was truly such an incredible experience working on this show,” they wrote via X on Wednesday. “Thank you all so much of your support and enthusiasm. I’m gonna miss saying, ‘Oh the fans are gonna lose their minds!’ almost as much as I will miss working with such hilarious and kind people.”
From her personal X account, Schouten added: “Best job I’ve ever had. Let’s do it again in another 10 years?”
