Showtime has surprisingly announced that it has opted against renewing its acclaimed series Ray Donovan for an eighth and final season, with January’s season 7 finale of the Liev Schreiber-headlined drama now serving as the series finale.
“After seven incredible seasons, Ray Donovan has concluded its run on Showtime,” reads a statement from the network (via Deadline). “We are proud that the series ended amid such strong viewership and on such a powerful note. Our deepest thanks go to Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight, showrunner David Hollander and the entire cast and crew, past and present, for their dedicated work.”
Responding to the news, Schreiber took to Instagram to salute the show and its fans:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8KwR1fnhfu/?utm_source=ig_embed
Meanwhile, showrunner David Hollander revealed to Vulture that the cancellation came as a complete surprise, and the team had already been working on plotting out what they expected to be the eighth and final season:
“We’re still scratching our heads. We had no indicator that the show was ending. We were behaving creatively as though we were in mid-sentence. And so, there was no sense that this was going to be a completion. [Season 7] was in no way a series finale…. I talked to everybody after I spoke to Showtime. The responses run the gamut from people being sad and grateful to anger and confusion. It’s a hard road, so sometimes you think, ‘Well, I don’t have to climb a mountain next year.’ At the end of the day, what I was saying to the network is, ‘Even if we don’t want to come back, we’re obliged to come back.’ This is not something that you just let go of narratively, because of our very long and committed relationship to our very loyal audience.
Premiering back in 2013 to record Showtime ratings, Ray Donovan stars Schreiber in the title role as a “fixer” for the rich and famous who can make anyone’s problems disappear, except those of his own family.
