Dan Harmon feels fans have moved on into the new era with Rick and Morty

Rick and Morty‘s seventh season pulled off a major feat that any cartoon would struggle with — substituting the voice talents. It may seem like a more trivial aspect of animation since actors are only heard, not seen. However, nailing the cadence and the soul of a character by embodying them through more than just an impression can really be felt by an audience. And Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon feels they’ve successfully made the transition from the old to the new, whereas former voice actor Justin Roiland was replaced by new voice actors Ian Cardoni (Rick) and Harry Belden (Morty) amid legal controversy.

Harmon spoke with Variety about moving ahead with this season and feeling like the fans have accepted the new voices for the new era of Rick and Morty. Harmon explained, “That’s my perception. That the goal was accomplished or those that wanted it accomplished, that they’re like, ‘I can’t tell the difference. The characters are the characters, let’s move on.’ As far as I can tell, we’re past it. It worked, we transitioned to a new era and if the show sucks from here forward, it’s for the usual reasons any show can suck. Not because of these dramatic events.”

He was also asked if he feels like this season has been more of a reset for the show. Harmon replied, “I think a reset is a good way of looking at it. We had so much behind the scenes drama that I think we didn’t need a lot of irony and challenge on the screen narratively. I think the experiment became, can we accomplish the show moving forward? Can the fans not lose their favorite show, not be distracted by any of the turbulence? There was also another important reason to reset, which is we’re anticipating doing a lot more of these. This was always designed to be a show that could last thousands of episodes. And you can’t last thousands of episodes if you’re simply going to tell a serialized story about how your protagonist stops being the protagonist.”

Now that he can rest easy knowing that he has incorporated elements for the new era, he will not fret about where to go in the future of the series, “Plenty of time to figure it out. With something this satisfying for this many people, conversations like that happen all the time. And I would anticipate an announcement one way or the other about the future at some point in the future.”