Cinemax has officially announced a sixth season of their hit action show Strike Back. Strike Back is based on the book of the same name by Chris Ryan, and the first season followed John Porter (Richard Armitage) around the globe as part of a covert unit known as Section 20; he also investigated his shady boss, played by a pre-Walking Dead Andrew Lincoln. The first season was produced by Sky before Cinemax came onboard to co-produce the second series.


Strike Back: Project Dawn marked some major changes to the show. Armitage’s commitment to The Hobbit movies meant he was confined to a cameo in the first episode, and Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton came onboard as new characters Stonebridge and Scott. Cinemax greatly increased the amount of action and sex on the show, and it soon drew a loyal fanbase. The Cinemax run of Strike Back lasted four seasons, with Scott and Stonebridge riding off into the sunset in 2015. The network ordered a rebooted take on the show soon after, with season 5 – dubbed Strike Back: Retribution – introducing 4 new team members to Section 20.


Despite the absence of Stone and Stonebridge, the new season provided the same mix of guilty pleasure thrills as the original series, and the dynamic between the new cast made it a lot of fun. The reboot has also been a success for Cinemax, with Deadline reporting a sixth season has gotten a greenlight. There’s no word on what the story might be, though the new team should be expected to return.


The number of seasons might be a tad confusing to longtime fans, since this will technically be the seventh season of Strike Back. Since Cinemax wasn’t involved with the original, Richard Armitage-led series, it tends to get overlooked, though it did eventually air on Cinemax in 2013, and was rebranded as a prequel titled Strike Back: Origins.


The new season of Strike Back got fans excited when it was announced Scott and Stonebridge were returning for a guest appearance in the final two episodes. Their appearance proved to be disappointingly brief, however, and while fans would no doubt love for both characters to return for a full season of the show, Winchester and Stapleton are busy on Law & Order: SVU and Blindspot respectively. If they do return for season six, hopefully, the show will have more for them to do.