‘Speechless’ Star Minnie Driver Announces Show’s Season 3 Renewal

“Speechless” is returning for another season on ABC.

The show’s Season 3 renewal was first announced by series star Minnie Driver Thursday night, and was confirmed by the show’s official Twitter and Instagram accounts the following day.

“THIS JUST IN: #spechless picked up for a 3rd season HA! Brilliant. Couldn’t be happier,” Driver tweeted. “So happy I spelt #speechless wrong ....”

In an Instagram post, Driver revealed that the next season will have 22 episodes. The show’s debut season had 23 half-hour installments, while its sophomore run was comprised of 18.

On the Scott Silveri-created series, Driver plays Maya DiMeo, the matriarch of an unconventional family whose lives revolve around JJ (Micah Fowler), a child with special needs. John Ross Bowie plays Maya’s husband Jimmy, while Mason Cook and Kyla Kennedy portray their younger children Ray and Dylan, respectively. Cedric Yarbrough also stars as JJ’s aide Kenneth.

Shortly after news of the Season 3 renewal broke, Fowler took to Instagram to reveal how excited he is for the new season. The 20-year-old actor, who has cerebral palsy, also thanked the fans for making the season renewal possible.

Season 2 of “Speechless,” which wrapped last March, averaged a 1.1 demo rating along with 4.3 million total weekly viewers in Live+Same Day numbers, down about 20 percent from its first season and ranking eighth in the demo among ABC’s 11 comedy series this TV season. Despite the decline in ratings, the figures were apparently enough for the network to order another season of the show.

Plot details about Season 3 are being kept under wraps, but last season ended with the DiMeos getting evicted out of their house. Also in the installment, JJ got nominations from two film festivals for his horror project. The first one chose him specifically for his disability out of tokenism, while producers of the second festival had no idea he had a disability. Ray, meanwhile, let himself take falls in basketball to try and impress Taylor but ultimately decided to let her go to improve himself.

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