Why Isn’t ‘The 100’ on Tonight? When Does It Return?

The CW The 100

If you tuned in to watch The 100 tonight, then you’re going to get an unwelcome surprise. Instead of a new episode, you won’t see The 100 airing at all. The CW has chosen to air a movie instead. What happened to The 100‘s new episode and when will it return? Why is the show taking another break so soon after the last hiatus that was just  a couple weeks ago? A lot of fans are getting tired of all these breaks.

Unfortunately, we won’t be seeing a new episode of The 100 tonight. Instead The CW is airing a movie called Strokes of Genius from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern. Yes, you’re not imagining things. We are on a hiatus again. But you won’t have to wait long until a new episode premieres. Season 5 Episode 9 will air next week.

There have been a lot of breaks this season. Just before Episode 7 aired, we had yet another break, and now The CW is taking a break again. Some fans are just getting tired of having so many breaks in between new episodes. The CW hasn’t announced an official reason why we don’t have a new episode tonight, but there are a couple different possibilities. The most obvious reason is because of the July 4 holiday. Even though it’s the day before the Fourth of July, a lot of people celebrate the night before too. So the show probably doesn’t want to compete with holiday celebrations. The show’s absence this week might also be due to planning for July Sweeps.

The CW often builds hiatuses strategically into its series to make sure they can take advantage of sweeps. Last year The CW put The 100 on a three-week break in April because of Sweeps. Typically the season ends before July Sweeps happens, but because the show started later this year, The CW is airing the show during summer sweeps, which is June 28-July 26. The CW likely wants to make sure they air some of their best episodes during specific parts of July Sweeps.

What we do know for sure is that this is the last break for the rest of the season.

(This next part of the story has major spoilers for last week’s episode.) 

The last episode of The 100 has helped justify fan theories that Octavia was going to end up being the new “big bad” in the series. One fan had even called that theory way back in episode 2 of this season. Octavia and Madi started forming a bond, but Clarke went ballistic over Octavia’s plan to have Madi fight in the war. Then it was revealed that Octavia planned to plant fatal snake eggs in the enemy’s camp, a move which might have backfired on them and destroyed the only verdant valley they know about. Bellamy ended up taking things into his own hands. “My sister, my responsibility,” he said, after feeding Octavia food laced with a substance that would put her in a coma until after they made peace with the prison group.

Next week’s episode, which is new, is called “Sic Semper Tyrannis” and it’s airing July 10 at a new time, one hour earlier. The summary reads: “The growing fractures in Wonkru threaten to explode once and for all; Murphy starts a fire, unleashing catastrophic results.” 

It’s already being reported that next season is going to be 13 episodes long, which is a disappointment to some fans who wanted a longer season. However, other fans point out that this means we won’t have any dreaded “filler” episodes. But honestly, it’s pretty entertaining to watch survivors in a post-apocalyptic world, so I personally can’t imagine a “filler” episode of The 100 that I wouldn’t enjoy watching.