Having effectively mined all the entertainment that could be had out of Italian people getting drunk and fighting, then added five more seasons, MTV has canceled Jersey Shore, confirming that its upcoming sixth season will be the last. The show recently wrapped production on the final phase of the social experiment, in which it proved that entitled assholes can metamorphose into super-duper-mega entitled assholes with liberal applications of alcohol, fame-seeking sexual hook-ups, and scads of money and media attention. These results have already been compiled into a handsome leather-bound volume that Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi then rubbed her vagina on.
The announcement comes shortly after Polizzi gave birth to a baby that she will be forced to take care of even after the cameras leave, an unfortunate plotline that seemed to spell an end for the show that was once all about drinking, dancing, and not having babies. (As Entertainment Weekly puts it in an admirable deadpan, "The overall sense has been that, creatively, the show has run its course.") That plotline—in which Snooki's visibly expanding uterus will become a poignant symbol of the Jersey Shore bubble readying to burst—will begin playing out with the series' final season premiere on Oct. 4, preceded by a retrospective special titled, Gym, Tan, Look Back on Sept. 6. Jersey Shore is survived by the spinoff series Snooki And J-WOWW, and an entire generation of people who will behave like that in the belief that they are famous.