‘The Resident’ Shakeup: 3 Actors Depart Ahead of Season 2

Fox’s The Resident continues to revamp its cast, letting go of three cast members before its second season.

The show will not bring back Moran Atias (PR chief Renata Morali), Merrin Dungey (ex-CEO Claire Thorpe) and Melina Kanakaredes (oncologist Lane Hunter) for the upcoming season of the series. Dungey and Kanakaredes’ exits were foreshadowed at the end of season 1, with Dungey already signed on to star in ABC’s new legal drama The Fix.

Meanwhile, along with other cast additions announced Monday, Frasier alum Jane Leeves will be joining the cast as a series regular playing Dr. Kitt Voss, the hospital’s new star orthopedic surgeon, TVLine reports. The actress reportedly only signed a one-year deal with the show, meaning she could be gone at the end of season two.

In the season one finale, the doctors realized Lene (Kanakaredes) was misdiagnosing patients so she could have more customers for her cancer clinic. She was arrested, which led to Randolph (Bruce Greenwood) being named CEO of the hospital.

The cast shakeup news comes a day after Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Glenn Morshower were promoted to series regulars for the upcoming season. Other returning series regulars include Matt Czuchry (Conrad), Emily VanCamp (Nic), Manish Dayal (Devon), Greenwood and Shaunette Renée Wilson (Mina).

Warner stars as AJ Marino, who is nicknamed “The Raptor.” The doctor has a larger-than-life personality, which was showcased in the operating room on the three episodes he showed up in on season 1.

Wishower plays Marshall Winthrop, the estranged father of Conrad (Czuchry). The freshman season finale ended with a cliffhanger, after Wintrhop was announced as the new chairman of the board for Chastain Park Memorial Hospital.

The Resident focuses on the bureaucratic limitations imposed on doctors and nurses within hospital guidelines and business practices. The show was reportedly Fox’s number three scripted series of the year. It pulled in an average 4.6 million viewers live and an audience of over 10 million across platforms per episode. The show had an average rating of 1.05 in the key demographic of adults 18-49.

The series was created by Amy Holden Jones, Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi, all three of whom wrote on the first season. Jones also works as an executive producer, along with Todd Harthan, Rob Corn, Antoine Fuqua, David Boorstein, Oly Obst and Phillip Noyce.

The show will return in fall 2018 for its second season, airing Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox, leading into hit series 9-1-1.