‘Castle’ canceled by ABC after eight seasons, backlash over Stana Katic – Tamala Jones dismissal

Well, consider this the surprise of the day: “Castle” will not be moving forward with a ninth season.

In the week leading up to this announcement, we certainly expected the show to be back. Many of the cast members were in negotiations, and to go along with that, the show had not really lost any ratings steam in the live+7 data since the news broke that Stana Katic and Tamala Jones were going to be leaving the show, though not really of their own choice.

There was a heavy internet backlash to the departures of these two actresses, which we presumed had to be expected from ABC given the mass fan base that this show and the characters have. Yet, we would guess that the cancellation is very much a direct response to some of the reaction from fans. Why else would there have been so many talks, and then the network making this move in the end?

With this cancellation, there will be time to include an ending to Monday night’s season / now series finale that represents a proper conclusion to the show and its characters. It’s a little early to say for certain what this will be, but we’d imagine something in line with what so many fans want.

Ultimately, what this cancellation shows more than anything is that networks do listen to the internet more so than sometimes they would lead us to believe. Given what some early indications were surrounding the show, there was no reason to think that this is the direction they were going to be heading.