ABC cancels past-its-prime-time soap ‘Revenge’

The ABC prime-time soap “Revenge,” once one of network TV’s hottest hours, has been canceled.

The Hollywood trades report the May 10 episode, once considered the season finale, actually will be the series’ last.

“We can officially tell our fans that this will be the end of the story,” executive producer Sunil Nayar told ew.com. “We’ve been talking to the network and we all just wanted to make sure that we felt very confident. Now that everybody has seen the finale — which is fabulous — everybody understands that as much as we all adore the show, it has hit exactly the mark it needed to to end.”

“Revenge,” about a young woman (Emily VanCamp) infiltrating the rich family that framed her father, got off to a sizzling start in 2011, with Sun-Times TV critic Lori Rackl calling it “fun to watch in a soapy, guilty pleasure kind of way.”

But the buzz faded, and viewership shrank from a high of 10 million in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic to a recent 4.45 million.

Show creator Mike Kelley, who grew up in Winnetka, left “Revenge” after the second season.