Seven years and six seasons later, Emily Cooper is leaving Paris. Netflix has confirmed that the sixth season of the show is the last and that the premiere is set for 24 December, with filming wrapping on Friday 18 September. Lily Collins said farewell to the role in a letter she titled "My last day on set as Emily…".

"I can't find the words. It's impossible to describe what this journey has meant to me," Collins wrote. "For so many years Emily has been part of my life and through every season she kept surprising me, inspiring me and challenging me."

Phil Collins' daughter thanked Darren Star, the show's creator and executive producer, for trusting her to bring to life "the endlessly optimistic American in Paris who constantly finds herself outside her comfort zone". She addressed the crew as family, and told the audience they were the ones who made Emily who she is.

The show everyone mocked and everyone watched

It is worth saying out loud what few want to admit: this is a show that spent seven years as the favourite target of anyone wanting to demonstrate how much taste they have. Paris as a postcard, French characters drawn in two lines, a wardrobe with no relationship to a marketing employee's salary. All of that is true. And none of it stopped the show from being one of the most-watched on the platform season after season.

There is a lesson here more interesting than the show itself. Critical opinion and viewing figures stopped travelling together long ago, and that is no accident. What looks shallow on paper works on screen as a rest - you watch a city where the light is always golden, problems get solved in forty minutes and nobody has bills they cannot pay. When everything off screen is the opposite, demand for that sort of thing goes up.

A final season with a Greek passport

The last season takes Emily to Greece and Monaco, with Paris as the central location. The plot ties back to Gabriel, her ex, who at the end of season five invites her to meet him in Greece. Filming started there too.

"Leaving is a completely surreal and bittersweet experience, but above all I feel incredibly proud and grateful," Collins wrote. "This changed me forever."

The question that remains is whether Netflix is really closing the door. A platform that built an industry out of sequels, spin-offs and revivals rarely says goodbye permanently. Six seasons are a completed arc only if nobody works out that a seventh would pay off.