Nashville Season 5 Premiere date, Cast, News and Major Spoilers. In short, a constantly updating article about Nashville Season 5 on CMT that saves you lots of search. 

SCROLL DOWN TO THE END OF THE ARTICLE FOR NASHVILLE SEASON 5 SPOILERS

An ABC cancellation, cast members starting to say goodbye, Lionsgate shopping Nashville around looking for a new network, fans campaign, renewal rumors and then delays and that’s without even mentioning the drama onscreen and one Juliette Barnes up in the air. Yes, being a Nashville fan (AKA a Nashie) is not for the faint of heart.

About Nashville Forever

Thankfully though our story has a happy ending in the form of a new beginning because CMT and Hulu (our new heroes) picked up ‘Nashville’ for another season and ‘Nashville Season 5’ will premiere sometime this fall.

To help you stay updated on the new season, we created this post that summarizes everything we know so far about the upcoming season – Premiere date, casting and other main news. We’ll keep updating this post every once in a while over the summer, so bookmark it and return every once in a while to see what’s new.

1. Where and How:

Channels: Nashville season 5 will air on CMT network and stream on their site. One day after the broadcast on CMT, episodes will also be available for stream on Hulu.

For viewers outside the US – this change should not affect your ability to watch Nashville in your country.

Production remains in Nashville!

Episodes run: According to CMT Programming boss Jayson Dinsmore the channel is leaning towards airing most of the 22 episodes of the season in a row and not stretch it out like they tend to do on networks. That means the season may start later in the year (Season 5 will air in January 5 2017) and end earlier than we got used to on ABC but the trade-off is we won’t have to wait too long between episodes.  

After Show: CMT are considering adding an after show that involves a talk about the episodes with cast members, guest and maybe fans as well as live performances.

More about Nashville’s new home on CMT read the interviews with  CMT president, Brian Philips HERE and CMT Programming Boss Jayson Dinsmore HERE

2. When:

Premiere Date: Nashville Season 5 returns with a 2 hours episode Thursday, January 5, 2017 on CMT  9/8c and will be available to stream on Hulu the day after. 

Filming: Filming for Season 5 begun September 6th. Here are photos from the first table read for Episode 5.01:

 

New Songs: Photo from the second songwriting camp for the show with Frankie Pine, Nashville’s music supervisor and the writers. Last year the show initiated a songwriters camp in LA where the writers share with the songwriters situations in which songs are required and they write songs for them. For example: Scarlett’s song about her mother “Speak to Me” was written by Lucie Schwartz (who also wrote “Black Roses” after the writers described the scene for her. That’s different from the usual selection of Nashville songs, where songs are written independently, submitted and after that are selected for specific scenes.

3. Who:

Not Returning: Will Chase (Luke Wheeler) and Aubrey Peeples (Layla Grant) will not return as regulars next season. Nevertheless, it has been reported both may guest-star to wrap up their storylines.  

Hayden Panettiere – Returns’ for all 22 episodes. 

Other returning cast members – Clare Bowen, Chris Carmack, Charles Esten, Jonathan Jackson, Lennon and Maisy Stella and Sam Palladio

*Connie Britton – According to EW and other reports Connie Britton is currently signed for only 10 out of the 22 episodes is likely to exit the show during the season.
Nevertheless, they also state a source close to the production insists it’s NOT final and they still remain very hopeful she’ll stay on board for the entire season.

The day after the rumors about Britton’s status surfaced, she tweeted the following. We don’t know if it’s only for appearance sake to calm the fans and support the show or to hints nothing is final. We prefer the latter but in any case, love the sound of it:

*Nashville Forever speculation re Connie Britton: From everything what we’ve heard all the cast is currently signed only to the first part of the season (10-12 episodes). It’s supposed to be only a formality since other than Britton all the other cast members expressed their will to stay for the entire season.

These split contracts are, we believe, based on the fact the network wants to wait and see how the relaunch of the show will go before they make long-term (and very expensive) commitments. It makes sense because a 22 episodes order by a small cable channel is very unusual. 

We speculate Connie Britton, who has the highest salary among the cast and was vocal about struggling with the demands of  full 22 episodes seasons (long hours and filming for most of the year) not to mention the show’s creative direction, used this as an opportunity to examine whether it’s something she wants to take on full-time again. Another option is moving to CMT demands budget cuts (again, it’s VERY unusual for a small  cable to order the same amount of episodes as a big network exactly for that reason) and that included their ability to pay Britton the same as ABC for full season. 

On a personal note we’ll say we truly want Connie Britton to stay. For us, although it’s an ensemble show and we love all the cast,  she is the heart of it. Without Rayna Jaymes it’s a completely different show and if we’re honest, one we may not be as interested to watch. So CMT, please do whatever it takes to keep Connie Britton/Rayna Jaymes on Nashville.

Creative Team: Dee Johnson, who has been Nashville’s showrunner from the start, stepped down at the end of season 4. The new showrunners are Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, (executive producers of My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething) replaced her and also set up a new writers room.

Callie Khouri, the creator of the show is still very much involved. Updated: Callie Khouri will direct the first episode of the season

For those who asked: As far as we know ‘On Location Casting” will still handle extras casting next season.

4. How Many?

Number of Episodes:  22.

In case you’re keeping score:

Season 1 – 21 Episodes
Season 2- 22 Episodes
Season 3 – 22 Episodes
Season 4 – 21 Episodes

5. Whats?

Music Specials, Tours and Soundtracks: We expect some (if not all) will continue but the extant is still unknown. Although CMT is a music channel but according to them, these things are not things they are going to impose on the show. It’s up to Lionsgate, the production company (and Opry Entertainment) to decide whether on not to continue with that.

General Information – According to Callie Khouri: “more emotion and authentic struggles. Less soap” Read the full interview HERE

According to Callie Khouri there are plans for more diversity this season.

Casting – Critically acclaimed Singer-Songwriter and co-founder of Grammy-Winning ‘Caroline Chocolate Drops’, Rhiannon Giddens joins the cast in a recurring role as Hanna Lee “Hallee”, a social worker with a voice of an angel.

THIS STORY IS DEVELOPING. BOOKMARK THIS PAGE AND RETURN EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE TO SEE UPDATES

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SPOILERS (This is the last part of this article. DO NOT CONTINUE READING if you don’t want to know any spoilers!!) 

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Updated: 

• CMT’s Nashville is looking to cast a transgender character for the upcoming season. There are currently no details about the nature of the roles but rumor (and TV GUIDE) has it, the character will play an important role in Juliette’s Barnes life.
• Speaking of Juliette Barnes: Yes, she survives but according to what we hear the plane crash leaves her with severe bruises. What that means to Juliette’s career in the long-run, we don’t know, but don’t expect her to dance around on stage when Nashville returns.
• According to Liz  Raftery on TVGuide, Rayna Jaymes will reclaim her queen of country status by returning to stage full-time. To help her do that she’ll cross paths with a young app developer and apparently a Rayna Jaymes superfan. His plan will want to expand Rayna’s fanbase and introduce her to a whole new generation but as it will turn out he will also have other, more nefarious plans for her. We’re smelling a stalker story and since Britton’s is yet to sign a contract for the entire season – we’re  still hopeful but also worried about the outcomes of it.