LOS ANGELES — "Everybody Loves Raymond" is about to return for its ninth and final season — although that darn near didn't happen.
"We were pretty close to saying no-go," said creator/executive producer Phil Rosenthal, who added he "would have been fine ending it this past season."
"I personally want the experience to go on forever, but everything ends. We'd rather end well than end badly. When the audience says, 'Hey, why don't you leave already?'"
CBS sold the producers on making this sort of a "victory lap," albeit a somewhat short one. Ray Romano and the producers have agreed to only 16 episodes this season after producing 24 each of the first six seasons and 23 last year.
"In January we all met, because we take the show very seriously, and we take the fact that we'll probably never work again very seriously," Rosenthal said. "We got together and said, 'Well, let's give it one more shot and see if we can come up with any stories — if there is any life in the old horse.' "
They came up with "seven or eight good stories," Rosenthal said. "And I thought, 'Well, if we have seven or eight now, we can probably double that number and come up with the rest.' And we landed on 16.
"So I'd like the audience to think of these 16 really as encores. We're coming back for a bit. But it is over."
Not that CBS didn't begin lobbying immediately for more than 16 episodes, if not a whole 'nother season.
"It doesn't surprise me that they're hoping. That's very flattering," said Rosenthal, who didn't completely rule out the possibility of going beyond 16 "if we were inspired to maybe come up with maybe one or two that we had to tell — stories that we can't go off the air until we tell these stories."
But he absolutely, positively ruled out the possibility of another season of the sitcom. "We have agreed that this is it and so that really won't happen."
What will viewers see all those weeks when there are not new episodes?
"Just a black screen," Rosenthal deadpanned.
Actually, don't be surprised if CBS does what NBC did last year with "Friends" and asks fans to vote on their favorite episodes from past seasons and uses them to fill the gaps.
What would Rosenthal say to fans who really love the show and really want to see more episodes?
"Goodbye."
"Read a book."
Not that he's not grateful for the show and the viewers that made it a hit.
"All the planets have to line up for one of these things to even get on the air, let alone survive the first year, let alone beyond that," Rosenthal said. "That's why we never left, because we knew how lucky we were to be on such a show."
NEGOTIATIONS: How much did CBS want the show back for even a shortened season? Rosenthal wanted to make sure that the show's staff and crew would be paid for a full season even if the show only produces 16 episodes "and CBS generously agreed to that."
THE END: Rosenthal and his creative team are promising that the "Raymond" finale will be just another episode of the show, more or less. That it will be a half-hour, not an hour.
"We're not interested in a huge, bloated finale that doesn't live up to the rest of the series," said executive producer Steve Skrovan.
"I think there will be an hour to an hour-and-a-half special around that finale, documentary footage of the last season, new interviews, some clips," Rosenthal said. "So, in that regard, I think it will be a special evening."
And, no, the final episode of last season — when Ray and Robert (Brad Garrett) argued over who would end up caring for their mother should she be widowed — was not intended as the finale even when it was intended as the final season.
"I wrote the story already for the series finale, and we didn't do it," Rosenthal said. "We only did 23 episodes this past season, instead of our usual 24. I'm saving it."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com