ABC Gives 'Scandal,' 'The Neighbors' Full-Season Orders

4:52 PM PDT 10/29/2012 by Lesley Goldberg

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The Shonda Rhimes drama will extend beyond its 13-episode sophomore season.

ABC/CRAIG SJODIN

"Scandal"

ABC has given full-season orders to freshman comedy The Neighbors and sophomore drama Scandal.

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The freshman comedy starring Jami Gertz and Lenny Venito as a couple who move in to a community populated by aliens who pose as humans (complete with names after famous athletes) has been a modest performer for the network on Wednesdays. ABC picked up three additional scripts for the critically panned series in early October, marking its first moves of the fall season. The network has also added additional scripts for first-year series Last Resort and 666 Park Avenue. The fate of freshman musical drama Nashville, meanwhile, remains unclear.

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Scandal, meanwhile, will see its sophomore season grow from 13 episodes to a full season of 22 hours of the Kerry Washington political fixer drama from Grey's Anatomy boss Shonda Rhimes. Initially invisioned as a British-style limited run series similar to State of Play, the freshman season consisted of seven episodes. The Thursday drama has been a constant performer on Thursday nights, holding steady with a 2.0 rating among adults 18-49.

Rhimes told THR in July that the second-year drama will start out with a season-long arc and potentially two should the series expand from its initial order for 13 episodes.

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"We want to keep telling stories in that manner and because we're doing 13 episodes and if we get more than that, we'll be telling two different season-long arcs," Rhimes said. "We came back nervous -- can we top what we did last season -- and now we're all really excited because we figured out how we can."

Scandal's full-season order comes after ABC added additional episodes of returning series Castle, The Middle, Grey's Anatomy and The Middle. Rhimes' third ABC series, Private Practice, will end its run after its initial 13 episodes.

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