Hart of Dixie
"Hart of Dixie" Season 4 could mark the end for Lemon Breeland (Jaime King, left) and Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson, right). CW

“Hart of Dixie” fans were hoping The CW series would be renewed, but unfortunately that doesn’t look like it’s in the cards. With the show about to complete its fourth season, its creator Leila Gerstein appeared to confirm on Twitter that Rachel Bilson, Jaime King and the rest of the “HoD” crew would not be returning for a fifth one:

However, Gerstein did not outright say the series was canceled, and The CW has not yet made an official announcement.

Rumors about cancellation have circled “Hart of Dixie” like a pack of buzzards because of the show’s low viewership. The series averaged 1.77 million viewers during its freshman season in 2011, but the comparable figure dropped to 1.37 million over Season 3 in 2014. The March 6 episode had 1.11 million viewers in the 8 p.m. time slot. In contrast, “World’s Funniest Fails” on Fox attracted 2.77 million and a repeat of “Law & Order: SVU” on NBC pulled 4.26 million in the same time slot.

Still, fans have maintained hope -- even when the show’s own stars suspected a grim fate awaited it. In October, Wilson Bethel, who plays Wade on “Hart of Dixie,” tweeted that they had wrapped filming for good. “Thank you, Wade Kinsella, for these four wonderful years,” he posted. “It’s been a mighty pleasure knowing you. #picturewrap #HartofDixie.”

Bethel later clarified to Yahoo TV that he was simply preparing for the worst. “There seemed to be indications that maybe potentially this could be the last season,” he said. “Storywise, it started to kind of feel in that way. In terms of some of the hullaballoo around certain tweets that were sent, it was basically preparing for that possibility.”

The “Hart of Dixie” Season 4 finale (and possible series finale), “End of Days,” will be shown on The CW Friday, March 20, at 8 p.m. EDT.

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