Could The 100 Season 6 See More Major Character Deaths Than Ever?

The 100 has officially been spared from cancellation for another year (thank you, CW!), and this time the renewal order comes a week before the current season has even premiered. That's a big show of faith on The CW's part in the show's ability to continue to thrive, but reaching a seventh season comes with its own set of problems.

On most TV shows, Season 6 is when contracts being to expire for series regulars, and some actors choose not to renew those contracts, choosing instead to seek out new projects. After all, six years on a series is a nice chunk of time, and CW shows, in particular, don't tend to make it past seven or eight seasons before kicking the bucket anyway. We've seen post-Season 6 exits happen time and time again on The CW, such as when Nina Dobrev leftThe Vampire Diaries, when Paul Blackthorne exited Arrow, or when Hilarie Burton and Chad Michael Murray departed One Tree Hill. Now that The 100 has secured itself a seventh season, the show risks losing one or more of its major players if any of the actors choose to go their own way.

That possibility makes the upcoming Season 6 even more of a wild card. People die on The 100 all the time -- that's just the nature of an apocalypse show -- but fans know that there are at least a handful of characters that will almost assuredly escape death year after year. Clarke (Eliza Taylor), Bellamy (Bob Morley), Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos), and Raven (Lindsey Morgan) can usually be depended upon to defy the odds of survival, but if The 100 were going to kill any of them off, the time could be now, when those actors presumably have completed their contracts.

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Of course, fans can cross their fingers that their faves decide to stick around. It's possible that the stars will want to see the story to its end, and that The CW will offer them enough of an incentive to stay. And with the entirety of Season 6 still to come, we're not likely to find out any time soon whose contracts were or weren't renewed because, duh -- spoilers. This is all speculation, and nobody's commenting on the state of their contracts right now.

The other issue to look at is, of course, whether Season 7 could end up being the show's last. As we mentioned earlier, CW series (ones that aren't Supernatural, anyway) that make it out of their early years tend to tap out around Season 7 or Season 8 (R.I.P. Arrow), meaning The 100's days could be numbered. However, in the case of The 100, we're not too worried about that considering The CW usually does a good job of handing out final season orders. Not to mention, Jason Rothenberg has dubbed this new season the beginning of Book II, making it clear that there are plenty of stories left to tell for the show, and he intends to continue telling them for several more seasons.

The 100 returns Tuesday, April 30 at 9/8c on The CW.

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PHOTOS: The 100 Season 6 Premiere Photos