It’s been a controversial time, but the ABC network has announced some scheduling decisions – voting not to storm a further season of ‘Castle’ or let ‘Agent Carter’ spy a renewal…
This week is when a lot of the final decisions are being made by the US networks with regards to what shows they are keeping and those that are heading to the great schedule in the sky.
In recent weeks there’s been a lot of controversy regarding whether ABC‘s Castle would return. Firstly, female lead Stana Katic (Kate Beckett) was suddenly announced as exiting the show, allegedly over budget-cuts and a revamp of the show that didn’t include her. Carefully worded responses and press statements from members of the cast did nothing to clarify the situation and speculation was rife that there was more to the re-organisation than mutually-agreed parting of the ways. However despite the fact titular star Nathan Fillion was confirmed to have signed a new contract along with other members of the ensemble including Jon Huertas (Esposito) and Seamus Dever (Ryan), ABC has now announced the show WON’T be returning after this month’s finale.
It isn’t known at this point whether the rumoured death of Katic’s character – Beckett being a staple of the show from the very first episode with the ‘will-they-won’t-they‘ romance that eventually blossomed into marriage between Beckett and Castle – will still happen or not in the series finale (or if it was ever actually planned at all). What IS known is that even the most loyal members of Castle‘s fanbase were surprised by Katic’s sudden departure and that the show created something of a major PR disaster in the way the announcements were made. The cancellation may actually have avoided it escalating even further if ratings had dipped as much as some expected.
In a move that’s less surprising ABC has cancelled Marvel’s Agent Carter after two seasons. Though the show – set in the post-WWII years and following Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) as she helps create the organisation that will become SHIELD and dealing with going forward in life after losing her sweetheart Steve Rogers – was an important part of the Marvel Universe, it was a fan-favourite rather than a ratings magnet and it was always touch-and-go whether it would get a third run. It’s not impossible Peggy will somehow turn up somewhere/when else in the Marvel stories (c’mon, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD – another ABC show – can a time-travel mix-and-match really not be on the cards?) though the latest Captain America film ‘Civil War‘ noted her passing as an elderly woman. It’s not entirely bad news for Atwell who will head the cast of an upcoming ABC show Conviction. She plays a brilliant young attorney who is also the daughter of a former U.S. President and finds herself blackmailed into head up LA’s new Conviction Integrity Unit as they investigate cases where people may have been wrongly convicted.
Marvel’s ‘Most Wanted’, which was to spin-off Bobbi Chase (Adrianne Palicki) and Lance Hunter (Nick Blood ) from Agents of SHIELD, will NOT be going forward after middling reviews of its pilot by ABC executives – and it is not clear whether a way will be found to return the characters to the main series after they were disavowed during the past season.
