It's time for fans of the Lifetime series Devious Maids to have a seat and prepare themselves for some bad news. The show has just been canceled and will not return for Season 5.
The network announced today that Season 4 will be the end of the road for Devious Maids. The show, which was developed by Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry and a star of his former ABC hit, Eva Longoria, just ended its fourth season on August 8. According to Deadline, while the first season of Devious Maids peaked at a very respectable 3 million Live + same day viewers for the Season 1 finale, Season 4 averaged at only .923 million Live + same day viewers. Each consecutive season saw a drop in viewership, even though ratings for individual seasons remained consistent. Devious Maids was picked up by Lifetime after originally being developed and having a pilot made for ABC.
The nighttime soap was very much in the same vein as Desperate Housewives. It focused on four Latina maids, Zoila (Judy Reyes), Marisol (Ana Ortiz), Rosie (Dania Ramirez) and Carmen (Roselyn Sánchez), who each work for some of the richest and most powerful families in Beverly Hills. Despite the perfect facade projected by all of the families they work for, each is hiding some big secrets, and, for that matter, so are their maids. A variety of mysteries filled the sometimes-campy four seasons of the show, which were always led by someone being horribly killed. There was also a lot of cheating, star-crossed lovers, crazy exes, big lies, financial shenanigans, sexual intrigue, cults and the occasional baby daddy/baby momma drama. In short, Devious Maids probably gave most nighttime soap lovers exactly what they needed.
Devious Maids made news for being the first and only ensemble with an all Latina main cast not on a Spanish language network. The series had been Lifetime's only returning original show until UnReal Season 2 came along this year. The drama was used to help launch the newer show, which is now being used to help change the creative direction of the network.
Well, for a show that had been passed over by a major network, Devious Maids did a pretty good job of satisfying the needs of viewers and giving itself a solid run. Four seasons might not be long enough for fans of the show, but it's nothing to dismiss when you think about the number of networks there are now and how many shows are vying for a good chunk of the viewership pie every season. Even a summer show like Devious Maids had to compete with a growing number of other shows trying to make a name for themselves by airing in the downtime between major network seasons. You can fill the Devious Maids void by checking out our Fall TV premiere schedule.
