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‘Scandal’ Season 6 Pushed Back: Kerry Washington’s Pregnancy Comes First In Thursday Night Shake-Up

By Niki Cruz
Published on: 06:25 PST, May 19, 2016

ABC’s Thursday nights is in for another shake-up starting with Scandal. After it was announced that lead Kerry Washington was expecting her second child, executives at ABC have decided to push Scandal back. What does that mean? Well, it means we’re going to have to wait a bit before we see what Olivia Pope is up to.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Scandal will not come back in the fall but as a midseason replacement. According to ABC chief Channing Dungey, that isn’t the only change coming to Shondaland. Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes, who has owned Thursday night’s on television for two seasons under her moniker, will have to expand since she now has five shows.

“We did have to make some adjustments to Scandal for a variety of reasons that had to do with the production schedule.”

The upcoming season also sees a new Shonda Rhimes show called Still Star-Crossed. In place of Scandal is a show called Notorious, which breaks up the Shonda block of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder. This season, we saw Rhimes’ new show The Catch replace How To Get Away With Murder after the show wrapped up, which meant that we still had a Shonda night with her three shows. As stated, next year will be a bit different with the fall replacement of Notorious.

As for Rhimes’ new show, it’s being called a Romeo and Juliet drama. TV Line describes it as follows.

“Shondaland’s Still Star-Crossed, a one-hour period drama based on Melinda Taub’s 2013 novel that chronicles the fallout from the legendary lovers’ deadly acts, has snagged a formal pilot order at the Alphabet network.”

Kerry Washington is taking a bit of a hiatus as well. After Washington’s pregnancy was announced, she decided to take a social media break.

The actress said in an Instagram photo about her decision to quit social media in the wake of the news, “It’s time for me to take a teeny break from social media. Feeling called to be a bit more quiet and still.”

She continued, “I’ll be back soon enough. This space has become such a community. I’m very grateful. Thank you. I’ll be thinking of youz and I’m sending love to you wherever you are…”

The last we heard from Washington was at the Actress Roundtable for the Emmys discussion, which featured Washington, Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Paulson, Kirsten Dunst, Regina King, Julianna Margulies, and Constance Zimmer.

Of dealing with sexism in the business, Washington said that Rhimes doesn’t make her feel sexually objectified.

“I’m in this very surreal environment right now having Shonda Rhimes as my boss, where it’s almost the opposite. It is specified in scripts that guys take their shirts off all the time.”

She continued, “The guys are naked all the time! And she has said to all the women on the show: “You want to do a love scene in a parka? You just let me know.” So it’s this weird, like, reparations moment where the girls get to do what they want to do and the guys get to do what they want to do, but they know what Shonda wants them to do.”

Fans have reacted to the news that ABC is not putting Scandal on in the fall.

[Image via ABC]

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