Ignoring the complaints of some sorehead reviewers who maintain that the Edie Falco series Nurse Jackie has already seen its best days, Showtime has decided that it’s going to be seeing a lot more of them, renewing the show for a sixth season. The announcement is not only happy news for Falco and her co-stars Anna Deavere Smith, Merritt Wever, Paul Schulze, and Peter Facinelli, but also a vote of confidence in showrunner and executive producer Clyde Phillips, who took the show over after the departure of co-creator Liz Brixius at the end of season four.
Nurse Jackie typically pulls better numbers than The Borgias, the Renaissance-era historical soap opera that Showtime just canceled, and it also has the virtue of not being an expensive costume drama filmed in Europe with castles and horses and stuff. It won Falco an Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy in 2010; it was nominated in three categories last year, and will probably be nominated again when this year’s nominees are announced—probably once again to the bemusement of everyone who didn’t realize it was still on. The finale to the current season airs June 16.