 Being the series' tenth-season finale, "Unending" was the fifth season-finale to potentially serve as "Stargate SG-1"'s last episode, although the writers originally anticipated another renewal of the series and planned to end the season with a cliffhanger.However, the Sci-Fi Channel announced the series' cancellation in August 2006, approximately one month before "Unending" was written.The network opposed the idea of a cliffhanger leading up to a possible movie, and since the producers never intended "to blow up the SGC and kill everyone", the episode's theme and name were chosen to give "a sense of ending without it being an ending".