'Private Practice's' Tim Daly Not Returning for Season 6

Karen Neal/ABC

"Private Practice's" Tim Daly

ABC's Private Practice will return for a sixth season but it will be without one of its original cast members.

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Co-star Tim Daly will not be returning to the Shonda Rhimes medical drama, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

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Daly played Pete Wilder on all five seasons of the series, which was considered a bubble show heading into May's upfronts but skirted cancelation with an eleventh-hour renewal. 

While the series was renewed, likely for a condensed episode count, sources noted it was unclear whether or not Daly could return to wrap up Pete's story line. In the Season 5 finale, Pete was sent to jail after mercifully killing one of his patients and later freed on bail.

"Wonderful fans of PPP. Shonda informed my agent today that Pete wont be returning for season 6. It was a great 5 yrs. R.I.P. Pete Wilder," Daly wrote on Twitter late Tuesday.

STORY: 'Private Practice's' Shonda Rhimes: Season Finale Will Leave Some Questions Unanswered

Since relocating to the post-Dancing With the Stars time slot on Tuesday nights to make way for Rhimes' freshman drama Scandal, Private Practice has had a mixed run. The Kate Walsh drama lost 19 percent of its viewership in its first week in the new slot, but rebounded afterward -- with Rhimes using spoilers in an active Twitter campaign to raise awareness for the show's new night in its fifth season. With its sixth-season renewal, the ABC Studios series will keep Rhimes busy with three series on ABC's schedule for the second year in a row. Her period drama pilot Gilded Lilys, meanwhile, was passed over at the network.

"I approached [final episode of the season] as if I was writing a season finale, not a series finale," Rhimes told THR earlier this month. "We did leave some questions unanswered and I think that was the only way for me to do it. I refused to go with the idea that this was the end of the show."

The series earlier this month lost writer/exec producer Craig Turk, who departed Private for an overall deal with CBS Television Studios, where he'll join The Good Wife as a consulting producer.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit