Written 9/19/22

-I'm finally making it known, Thank You, Heavenly is back. I've officially started work on the ninth season, set to be released sometime in early 2023. And the brand new standalone Christmas special is, of course, coming on Christmas night.

-Two years ago, I originally ended Thank You, Heavenly with the season eight finale "Heavenly Life." I made the announcement in May 2019 that the eighth season would be the last one. I felt like I had used up all of my best ideas and I didn't want to run the series into the ground, to the point where I hated working on it and it became a parody of itself. By July 2020, I was more than ready to call it quits. I was burnt out creatively and at times, working on season eight was a chore because of the constant adjustments, delays, and my own mental issues.

-I didn't necessarily want to work on other projects. I just genuinely believed I had nothing left to say. I thought Thank You, Heavenly was something I wouldn't want to go back to for a long time, and if I did, it would have to be in a different form. I tried working on a one-off Christmas special not long after wrapping up the series. I had plans for a Christmas episode in season eight, but I barely gave it a shot and I wanted to try it again. I wrote up to a certain amount, but I never got more than halfway through the script. I tried going back to my WWE stories, which I originally wrote from 2010-2013 and gave up on to focus more on TYH. I only finished one story (Judgment Day 2000) and got halfway through the next one (Extreme Rules 2000) before tapping out.

-After that, I started thinking about The Thank You, Heavenly Movie. I was going to write a film adaptation of the series for this contest in early 2021. I ended up submitting a different script and the movie was never written, but I had the idea outlined and I knew where I wanted the story to go. Then I thought about going back to the Thank You, Heavenly Rewind idea, where I would write newer versions of older episodes. This turned into me trying to create a new series called That's What Friends Are For, which is a version of the original show that's more polished and something I could use to build my portfolio. Once again, it didn't get off the ground, but this is where I wrote the outline for "Cruel Summer" (more on that later).

-I don't think I was smart enough to realize this at the time, but almost everything I was doing was related to Thank You, Heavenly. Despite ending the series, I was still involved with it. Even then, making new episodes was out of the question. The only thing I thought about doing was the Christmas special. I had no plans for anything else besides that. Then I came up with the idea for another Christmas episode. And then last July, out of nowhere, I came up with all these episode ideas in one day. My mind was thinking about the show the same way it used to think about it for eight years. A few weeks later, I knew I had to bring Thank You, Heavenly back. I realized that ending the series was a mistake and it's what I thought I wanted at the time. I thought I had to do it. But what I really wanted was a long break. A chance to recharge my batteries and come back with a clear head.

-When I first decided to bring back Thank You, Heavenly, I thought about a lot of things like the rollout, the number of episodes per season, and a brand new writing process. I was going to have the two Christmas episodes be the season nine premiere doubleheader. Then in January 2022, I would start coming out with the rest of the season. I abandoned this idea because I wasn't ready yet. I did start working on both Christmas episodes, and there were multiple season nine episodes I was interested in doing. I was also thinking of more episode ideas. But mentally, I was in the darkest place of my entire life. I felt unmotivated, constantly stressed out, irritated, and frustrated with everything. 2021 was the hardest year I've ever had to get through, and there was no way I could commit to new episodes if I felt like that. It was similar to what happened to me in season eight, if not worse, and I didn't want it to happen again. I needed a better state of mind in season nine.

-I delayed the Christmas special a third time and pushed back season nine to March 2022, then June 2022 to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the series. I actually started writing the first episode of season nine in January, but after a couple days, I just abandoned it despite the story coming together well. In the meantime, I was taking care of my personal issues and it got to the point where I knew June 24 was an unrealistic premiere date. Unlike previous seasons, I wanted season nine to be 100% finished before I released any episodes. I wanted to give myself more time than ever before to work on the series and do more rewriting. In the past, I would start writing a new season in the summer, and by November, I was already working on crunch time and having to write new episodes at the same time I had to put them out. I wasn't interested in doing that anymore (except in some cases like "Cruel Summer"). Plus, depending on when season nine started, it would conflict with the Christmas special. That's when I decided to forget about doing season nine this year and move on to next year.

-So, right now, season nine is set for early 2023. I don't want to say anything concrete about the release date because that always backfires on me, but I at least want to start the season by next May. I'm going to do 15 episodes, uninterrupted for three months. The reason I'm cutting back on episodes is because I don't have it in me to write 25 episodes a season, at least for now. I have enough ideas for a season with the same number of episodes as the last few, but I want to really make sure every episode I write is as good as it can possibly be. Each season from now on should feel more like an album. For the first eight seasons, I treated Thank You, Heavenly like a network sitcom. Think of The Goldbergs or Young Sheldon. Now, with the way television moves and the way I want to move, the show is getting treated like something on cable or premium cable (HBO, Starz, Showtime) or streaming services. Season nine could come out in March 2023, and season ten could come out in September 2024. Not saying it will be exactly like that, but I'm not doing the September-to-May schedule anymore.

-Because season nine took such a long time to get off the ground, the plan is for season ten to have a much shorter production time. I'm still going to write episodes in advance, but I don't want season ten to go through the same process season nine has. I had to figure out a lot about myself and the series before I was ready to come back, and even now, I'm still not fully locked into the whole thing. By December, that should change, but future seasons should have a much easier starting point.