ABC Cancels Shonda Rhimes’ ‘Scandal,’ ‘The Catch,’ But Picks Up ‘For The People’

Two of Shonda Rhimes’ TV shows have been canceled by ABC, but the famed executive producer will be introducing a new project to her fans across the world.

Earlier this week, TV Line reported that “Scandal” will end after its upcoming seventh season. ABC has yet to make an official announcement regarding the cancellation, but it will apparently be confirmed by the network on Friday, May 12. A day later, Entertainment Weekly reported that “The Catch,” starring Mireille Enos, has been canceled after two seasons.

Read: “Scandal” to end after Season 7 due to Shonda Rhimes’ request

According to the same publication, Rhimes’ “For the People” has received the green light from ABC. The series stars “The Flash” alum Britne Olford and “The Originals” actor Lyndon Smith as young lawyers handling high-stakes federal cases while juggling their troubled personal lives. Rhimes will act as executive producer for the series.

Meanwhile, the cancellation of “Scandal” at the end of Season 7 and “The Catch” after two seasons did not necessarily come as a surprise to fans. According to Deadline, the latter was canceled primarily because of its low ratings. In Season 1, the ratings for “The Catch” weren’t impressive either, but ABC decided to give the series another chance. Unfortunately, the ratings didn’t improve in Season 2. On average, “The Catch” only garnered a 1.0 rating among viewers aged 18 to 49.

“The Catch” followed the life of Enos’ character, Alice Vaughn, a private investigator who learns that her fiancé, Benjamin Jones (Peter Krause), is a conman. Alice tracked down Ben and brought him to justice in Season 1. In an attempt to boost the ratings for the series, executive producer Allan Heinberg decided to give the series a more fun and lighter tone.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Heinberg explained that a series won’t be a Rhimes series if it doesn’t offer a mixture of laughter, tears and more. “We want to have it all on the show. So the stakes are really high. Even thought it’s a sort of heightened world, we are playing things as emotionally grounded as we can. So the humor just seemed to organically come out of who they are. It wasn’t a conscious effort to go lighter, we just wanted to have more fun writing the characters and to have the actors get to do more fun stuff,” he said.

Meanwhile, “Scandal” will also be canceled at the end of Season 7 due to the show’s staggering ratings. According to TV Line, the series received its lowest ratings to date in Season 6. But on top of this, Rhimes told NPR a few years back that she already knew when the Kerry Washington-starrer was supposed to end. “I feel like there’s a finite amount of ‘Scandal’ to be told. So I know what the end of ‘Scandal’ will be, and I feel really good about that. And I can see where the end point is. And I don’t think I’m going to change that… I know how long I think it will be. But we’ll see,” she said.

Rhimes was also the one who proposed the end of “Scandal” to ABC.