Shonda Rhimes is one of television’s biggest moguls, whose name is mostly associated with medical dramas. Rhimes is best known as the creator, showrunner, head writer, and executive producer of ABC’s massively successful medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, which premiered in 2005. Though Rhimes stepped down in 2015, the series is still airing to this day, currently in its 21st season, following the personal and professional lives of surgical interns, residents, and attending physicians at a hospital in Seattle.
Rhimes also created the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice, which ran for six seasons from 2007 to 2013, following Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), who leaves Seattle Grace Hospital to join a private practice located in Los Angeles. Outside medical dramas, Rhimes also created Scandal and, as the founder of Shondaland, has produced How to Get Away with Murder, Netflix’s Bridgerton, its spinoff Queen Charlotte, Inventing Anna, and The Residence. In 2011, Rhimes produced another medical drama that was canceled after just one season.
Shonda Rhimes Reflects On Off The Map 14 Years Later
The Medical Drama Was Canceled After One Season
Shonda Rhimes reflects on Off the Map, which was canceled after just one season. Created by Grey’s Anatomy writer Jenna Bans, with Rhimes serving as an executive producer, the ABC medical drama premiered in 2011, following a group of doctors from the United States who practice medicine at a remote clinic in the Amazon jungle in an attempt to rediscover their true reasons for becoming doctors. The show’s cast included Martin Henderson, Valerie Cruz, Caroline Dhavernas, Jason Winston George, Zach Gilford, Mamie Gummer, Rachelle Lefevre, and Jonathan Castellanos.
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During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Shonda Rhimes reflected on Off the Map‘s cancellation over a decade later. She says it was a strong show with a great cast that she believes would have succeeded if it had premiered at a different time, since it didn’t fit the era’s demand for “super appointment television,” but she personally loved it and wishes it had lasted longer. Read her full comments below:
When I think about that, I definitely think about Off the Map. Off the Map was such a great cast. It was a really, really good show that I think if it started out five years ago, it’d still be running. But it was that particular time. Remember how every single thing had to be super in television because everybody was trying to catch up with Lost and Desperate [Housewives] and Grey’s? So it wasn’t super appointment television enough, but it would’ve been a show that I would’ve made an appointment with television for myself, and I would’ve watched it. It was so good. I wish it had gone much further than it did.
Why Was It Canceled?
Off the Map actually enjoyed decent ratings, as it debuted with an audience of 7.57 million viewers, making it ABC’s most-watched broadcast in the time slot at the time since the first two episodes of Eastwick in 2009. However, it received bad reviews, indicated by its 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes, as critics called it “dreadfully painful in its efforts to be dramatic and earnest.” As Rhimes admits, Off the Map wasn’t appointment television like Lost, though it did, interestingly enough, use many of the same production facilities in Puerto Rico and Hawaii.
Source: EW