The Big Picture
Olivia Rodrigo, who originally played the lead role in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, was absent from the final season due to her busy songwriting career. The fourth season pays homage to High School Musical 3: Senior Year and includes a meta twist where the characters’ plans are disrupted by the announcement of High School Musical 4: The Reunion movie. The final season brings back several original High School Musical cast members including Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, and more.
An out-of-the-ordinary spin-off to the original High School Musical franchise, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series boasts quite an ensemble cast, from actor/singer Joshua Bassett to No Hard Feelings’ breakout star Andrew Barth Feldman. However, one of the show’s most notable cast members, Olivia Rodrigo, did not appear in the final season of the Disney+ musical comedy-drama. Despite the “vampire” singer’s significant part in the series — having played the lead role from the first to second seasons, with recurring appearances in Season 3 — showrunner Tim Federle explains Rodrigo’s absence in the final season, citing her busy schedules as one of the main reasons.
The fourth season of HSMTMTS, which consisted of eight episodes, recently concluded, with familiar faces returning to film a fictional reunion of the original HSM film cast members. Even though known HSM alums like Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Kaycee Stroh, and Alyson Reed returned for the series finale, the spin-off’s original star was not present. During an interview with Variety, the HSMTMTS showrunner spoke about formulating the series’ conclusion and why Rodrigo’s Nini Salazar-Roberts didn’t make it in the finale. Federle explained:
“I felt really confident about that ending and Olivia is so busy with her songwriting career. At this point, we are introducing so many new people, the OG characters and we wanted to bring back other really important characters. I kind of felt like, with only eight episodes, it just becomes cameos as opposed to real stories. The offer was extended to her insomuch as Olivia knowing from me that she can always come back. But it was never really seriously discussed because there were new relationships we had to write for.”
What is ‘HSMTMTS’ about?
Image via Disney+
The mockumentary has always been faithful to its source material. After preparing a stage production of 2006’s High School Musical and its follow-up movie in 2007, the fourth and final season pays homage to 2008’s High School Musical 3: Senior Year. However, “in a meta twist signature to the series, plans are disrupted when Disney announces the long-awaited High School Musical 4: The Reunion movie will shoot on location at their beloved high school.”
The fourth season of HSMTMTS also stars Sofia Wylie as Gina Porter, Julia Lester as Ashlyn Caswell, Dara Reneé as Kourtney Greene, Frankie A. Rodriguez as Carlos Rodriguez, Kate Reinders as Miss Jenn, and Liamani Segura as Emmy. The rest of the recurring cast are Kylie Cantrall, Adrian Lyles, Saylor Bell Curda, Joe Serafini, and Matt Cornett, who starred as E.J. Caswell in all four seasons of the series.
You can watch the Season 4 trailer below.
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