Virgin River Season 6 & Christmas Episodes: Everything We Know

Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

More Virgin River is on the way to Netflix in the form of two new Christmas episodes hitting the service before the close of 2023 and season 6, which will arrive later down the line but much later than usual. Here’s everything you need to know about season 6 of Virgin River.

The show was handed a sixth season renewal ahead of Virgin River season 5 even releasing. It was announced at Netflix’s Upfront 2023 event that occurred in May 2023. The early renewal has become a habit of the show, with every season given an early renewal (and often filming ahead of the announcement) since season 2.

Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of scripted drama, teased in an interview with Deadline that so long as fans keep turning out for the series, “you can rest assured that there will be more Virgin River.”

Season 5 of the show saw some big changes, particularly behind-the-scenes with a new showrunner coming on board. The show was split into two-halves with episodes 1 through 10 added on September 7th, 2023.

While we’ll cover what’s known so far about Virgin River season 6 and the Christmas episodes below, we won’t be going into any spoilers about plot points for the future just yet. There’s a lot to cover on that front, but we want to see how things wrap up in part 2 of season 5 first.

We’ll update this post in either late November or early December 2023 with predictions and more of what we know about the plot.

Christmas Episodes of Virgin River Arrive in November 2023

Picture: Netflix

Of course, before we get to season 6 of Virgin River, we’ve got two more episodes of season 5 (labeled as season 5 – part 2).

Consisting of two episodes, the holiday episodes sees

Speaking to Netflix, Martin Henderson teased some of the main thread lines heading into the holiday episodes. He states that everyone comes together around the holidays teasing a Christmas tree light competition plus teases ice-skating and snowflakes.

As we first revealed when we dropped the episode titles for the new season, the two episode titles are as follows:

• Episode 511 – The More the Merrier
• Episode 512 – Father Christmas

We can also confirm that these won’t be extended episodes of Virgin River, instead being more akin to the runtimes of all the other episodes in season 5.

Gail Harvey directs both Christmas episodes, with episode 511 written by Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith.

Here’s the teaser trailer for the upcoming two episodes that details how Mel is on the search for her father.

As always, we’d recommend giving Virgin River’s official Instagram account a follow who has been sharing some behind-the-scenes snaps of the forthcoming episodes, including this excellent one of all the cast:

Picture: virginriverseries/Instagram

Virgin River Season 6 Hasn’t Started Production Because of Strikes

While we haven’t officially heard whether all the scripts have been completed for Virgin River season 6, we do know that production had been scheduled to begin this summer.

In fact, numerous sources state that production would begin on July 24, 2023, with the show reportedly still continuing to have a budget of between $3 and $5 million per episode.

Of course, SAG-AFTRA (the union representing actors) would go on strike just a couple of weeks earlier than that start date and have been on strike ever since, meaning that the production start for Virgin River season 6 (set to take place in Vancouver, Canada again) is now delayed indefinitely.

It won’t be until the strikes end that production can begin on the sixth season.

It’s unclear how many episodes season 6 will have. If it sticks to the last two seasons, it’ll be on the higher end of 12.

Virgin River. (L to R) Sarah Dugdale as Lizzie, Kai Bradbury as Denny in episode 505 of Virgin River. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

When will Virgin River season 6 be released on Netflix?

Given that cameras have yet to start rolling as planned, it seems increasingly unlikely as the weeks tick by that the new season will drop in 2024.

That sentiment was echoed in an Instagram post by executive producer Rich Keith, stating:

“All I want for Christmas is my two… uninions to get a fair deal from the AMPTP. If they don’t hurry up there won’t be any #VirginRiver on @Netflix until 2025…”

We’ll keep you posted on all things Virgin River season 6 as soon as we get more. Let us know in the comments if you’re excited about the new season and Christmas episodes.