The seventh season of Adventure Time, an American animated television series created by Pendleton Ward, premiered on Cartoon Network on November 2, 2015, and concluded on March 19, 2016. It follows the adventures of Finn, a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and size at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they interact with the show's other main characters: Princess Bubblegum, The Ice King, Marceline the Vampire Queen, Lumpy Space Princess, BMO, and Flame Princess. The seventh season of Adventure Time features an eight-episode story-arc, promoted and originally broadcast as the miniseries Stakes, which examines Marceline's backstory and follows Finn, Jake, Bubblegum, and Marceline as they attempt to defeat several newly resurrected vampires. This season also features the stop-motion episode "Bad Jubies", directed by guest animator Kirsten Lepore. The season premiered with the episode "Bonnie & Neddy", which was viewed by 1.07 million viewers (this marked a decrease in ratings from the previous season finale, "Hot Diggity Doom"/"The Comet"). The Stakes miniseries, which aired near the beginning of the season, rated well, with each episode being seen by around 1.8 million viewers. The season concluded with "The Thin Yellow Line", which was watched by 1.15 million viewers; this made it the lowest-rated Adventure Time season finale at the time. Critical reception to the season was largely positive, and the episode "The Hall of Egress" was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Short-format Animation at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards. At the same event, Herpich and Jason Kolowski each won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation, for their work on "Stakes Part 8: The Dark Cloud" and "Bad Jubies", respectively. "Bad Jubies" won an Annie Award for Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production for Children. Several compilation DVDs that contain episodes from the season have been released, and the full season was released on DVD on July 18, 2017.
Development
Concept The series follows the adventures of Finn the Human, a human boy, and his best friend Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and size at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, wherein they interact with the other major characters, including: Princess Bubblegum, The Ice King, Marceline the Vampire Queen, Lumpy Space Princess, BMO, and Flame Princess. Common storylines revolve around Finn and Jake discovering strange creatures, dealing with the antagonistic but misunderstood Ice King, and battling monsters in order to help others. Multi-episode story arcs for this season include Bubblegum adjusting to life in exile and eventually reclaiming the Candy Kingdom crown, and Marceline coming to terms with her vampiric nature.
Production
On July 25, 2014, the series was renewed for a seventh season. On September 26, 2014, Tom Herpich posted a picture on Tumblr of himself and Steve Wolfhard pitching the season premiere to the Adventure Time crew, suggesting that storyboarding for the season had already commenced. By August 9, 2015, production of the season had been completed and most of the staff's focus had shifted to the eighth season. In regards to the tone of the season, at the 2015 New York Comic Con, Muto said that this season focuses more on telling "simpler stories with the characters". While he contrasted the show's seventh season with its sixth—which he described as "heady"—Muto asserted that the seventh season would not be a "throwback" to the show's earlier seasons, which had been defined by their focus on comedy. Originally, the show's seventh season comprised episodes "Bonnie & Neddy" through "Reboot", for a total of 39. However, when it came time to upload the seventh season onto streaming sites, Cartoon Network chose to end the season with its 26th episode, "The Thin Yellow Line." The network then began counting the remaining 13 episodes (which included "Broke His Crown" through "Reboot") as making up the first portion of season eight, despite their having been produced as part of the seventh. This new episode count was cemented by the release of the complete seventh season DVD on July 18, 2017, which included episodes up until "The Thin Yellow Line". This season's episodes were produced in a process similar to those of the previous seasons. Each episode was outlined in two-to-three pages that contained the necessary plot information. These outlines were then handed to storyboard artists, who created full storyboards. Design and coloring were done at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California, and animation was handled overseas in South Korea by Rough Draft Korea and Saerom Animation. Kirsten Lepore directed the episode "Bad Jubies", which was animated via stop motion, continuing a tradition from the previous two seasons of using a guest animator for an episode. Lepore had previously animated the short stop-motion tag for Frederator Studios, one of the series' production companies. There was a sneak peek of "Bad Jubies" at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 19, 2015, several months before the season's premiere. Pearson—a British cartoonist who had worked on the fifth season with Xayaphone—was temporarily hired to storyboard two episodes with Partridge. Similarly, Castuera, who had stepped down from her role as a regular storyboard artist after the fifth season, returned in a temporary role for three episodes with Moynihan. While series creator Pendleton Ward worked on a few outlines for this season, Osborne told IndieWire that Ward did not take an active role in developing stories that were produced after November 2014. Ward had an oversight role and provided occasional input, focusing much of his attention on developing an Adventure Time movie. In February 2015, Ashly Burch was hired to write story outlines for the show. Burch had voiced several characters in the sixth season before becoming a permanent member of the writing staff. She later joked that, because she was a fan of the show prior to being hired, writing for the show was akin to writing fan fiction.
Miniseries
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