It’s Shonda Rhimes’ world, and we all just watch it. The formidable ABC showrunner has had yet another rebound year for her veteran flagship show, Grey’s Anatomy, alongside a worst-ever season for the once-great Scandal. EW reports that ABC has rewarded Rhimes with a second season of her new, vibrant romantic intrigue drama The Catch, which is fun enough to remind us all why we liked Shonda Rhimes in the first place. The network is also ordering up yet another new show from Shondaland: Still Star-Crossed will be Rhimes’ first (and possibly ill-advised) foray into period drama. The series picks up after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, to explore the further family drama of the Montagues and Capulets, which fans of course have been angling for for centuries.
Another fictional clan will get no such closure. TV Line reports that The Family—created by Jenna Bans, a writer formerly of the Shondaland stable—has not been renewed for a second season. The show kicked off with an impressive cast—including Joan Allen, Rupert Graves, and Andrew McCarthy—alongside a promising premise reminiscent of the documentary The Imposter, as a long-ago abducted child returns to his family years later. Or does he? While The Family reveled in its suspenseful hairpin turns and no-holds-barred plot twists (one character beats himself up with a baseball bat to make it look like someone else did it, for example), a too-chaotic plot web and the worst fictional police force this side of the Keystone Cops made the show a frustrating watch overall. Tweets from the cast and crew have hinted that The Family’s first season is bound to end on a cliffhanger, so the cancellation means the show will offer frustration to its bitter end.