Castle canceled after 8 seasons

Castle has been canceled after eight seasons, EW has learned.

The news comes as somewhat of a surprise after the announcement that Stana Katic and Tamala Jones would not return for a potential ninth season; reports had characterized the exits as cost-cutting measures designed to allow the show to return for another season.

With the possibility of cancellation looming, executive producers Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter previously told EW that they shot a final scene that could act as closure for the series. “If we hear that we’re not coming back, we have shot something that we can put at the end of the episode as a way to put a button on everything,” Hawley said. “Obviously that would be a bad thing, because it would mean no more. We did it in order to try to protect the fans, because you can’t end the series on a cliffhanger.” Added Winter: “The hope is that it never sees the light of day.”

The cancellation may actually be good news for the fate of Katic’s Beckett, who was likely to meet a grim fate should the show continue on without her. “Their lives are in jeopardy pretty much from [the] jump,” Hawley recently said. “What we wanted to do was keep pulling the rug out from under them. Things get dangerous very fast. Ultimately, it’s a back-and-forth between being the hunted and being the hunters all the way through the finale.”

The Castle airs Monday at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.