Rick and Morty season eight is being worked on 'right now'

Rick and Morty season six is right around the corner with just a couple of weeks to go before the first new episode drops, and the people behind the show are already hard at work on future seasons.

We know that back in 2018 between seasons three and four Adult Swim ordered a whopping 70 new episodes from the Rick and Morty creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland.

Besides the first season, which has 11 episodes including the pilot, there have been 10 episodes per season of Rick and Morty so it stands to reason that given enough time we’ll end up with 10 seasons of the show.

For now, season six is what we've got coming up next and any indication that the next couple of seasons are well underway has got to be a good sign for fans of the show.

However, working on so much of the show at the same time posed some unique problems for the show's creators as they sometimes lost their sense of where they were in production.

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Series co-creator Dan Harmon said it was already quite difficult to keep track of ‘which things are in season six and which are in season seven’ and relied on producer Scott Marder to have a handle on juggling episodes.

Marder confirmed the Rick and Morty team were 'in the middle of season eight right now' and joked that they were 'juggling a lot of episodes' in their efforts to keep making the show.

That sounds like good news for Rick and Morty fans who will be hoping they won’t have to wait for years and years before getting to watch the follow-up to the upcoming season six.

Season six is premiering a year after season five wrapped up, and with the next two seasons worth of episodes already being worked on, it’s got to be all fingers crossed that work isn't slowed down.

This practice of working on episodes well ahead of time is nothing new, with Dan Harmon confirming they were writing season six more than two years ago, and it's helped eliminate long waiting times between new seasons.

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With five seasons under their belt, a sixth on the way within a matter of days and already working on episodes for season eight, Rick and Morty is facing the challenge of keeping things fresh.

Harmon discussed the difficulties of finding new ways to challenge Rick, as after more than 50 episodes it could be tough to pose new tests to the smartest man in the universe, and found that the bond between Rick and Morty was the best thing to challenge.

He said: "With Rick, we recognised early on that eventually this guy's gonna be a living god. 

"We can't go where we want to with these sci-fi stories without endowing this man with powers that kind of make him invincible. We rarely tell stories where the stakes you’re feeling are like the Adam West Batman endings where it's like 'Oh my God, is Rick gonna die?'

"The emotional core of it is what’s at stake. It usually has to do with the relationship with Morty."

As for the episodes right around the corner, Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland said season six would be 'f***ing amazing'.

Of course he would say that having made the show, but he promised a new and more 'canonical' approach would really reward long-term fans of the series.

Rick and Morty season six premieres on Adult Swim at 11pm Eastern time, 4 September, it will be simultaneously broadcast on E4 at 4am UK time on 5 September.