First Finn and Jake, and now Sterling Archer?

Just as fans are beginning to come to terms with the conclusion of "Adventure Time" in 2018, "Archer" creator Adam Reed has announced that the 10th season of the FX animated series will be its last.

“The plan is to end 'Archer' after Season 10,” he said during a recent appearance on the Modern School of Film's Murmur podcast. “I don’t know that anybody has talked about that, but that is definitely my plan – to do 8, 9, and 10, and they’re gonna be each shorter seasons of just eight episodes – and then wind it up. … I was gonna end it after 8, but then I had sort of a brain explosion of a way that I could do three more seasons and really keep my interest up. So the three seasons that are coming up are gonna be pretty different from what has come before, and they’re gonna be different from each other.”

The announcement comes mere weeks after "Archer" won its first Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Series, beating out “The Simpsons," “South Park," “Phineas and Ferb” and last year's winner “Bob’s Burgers.”

FX renewed "Archer" in June for three more seasons, taking the series through its 10th. While there was certainly an expectation among fans that the cartoon would continue beyond that, Reed acknowledged it might be time for him to try something new.

“I do think that things can go on too long,” he said, “and maybe instead of just looking at the bottom line, maybe those creative energies could be better used coming up with something new rather than continuing the same thing.”

Debuting officially in January 2010 (the pilot actually aired four months earlier), the animated spy comedy follows the exploits of Sterling Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin), a self-involved secret agent who makes up for his incompetence with what appears to be blind luck.

Beyond its trademark humor, the cult-favorite series is perhaps best known for a willingness to shake up its status quo. While the first four seasons depicted Archer and his colleagues as operatives of International Secret Intelligence Service, run by his domineering mother Malory (Jessica Walter), with Season Five, the agency was disbanded, leaving the employees to form a drug cartel in a satire of "Miami Vice" called ... "Archer Vice." Not finished with the upheavals, Reed & Co. returned to the spy genre with Season Six, only to have the characters blacklisted by the CIA in Season Seven and shuttled off to Los Angeles, where they opened a private detective agency.

As with "Adventure Time," fans of "Archer" have a little time before the end: Season Seven concluded in June, with the eight-episode Season Eight targeted to air next year.

(via Entertainment Weekly)