Audiences have spoken and Scandal is a bigger hit than ever before. The season three premiere of the series, starring Kerry Washington as political fixer Olivia Pope, drew a record 10.5 million viewers, a personal best for the Shonda Rhimes-created show. 
What's more, Scandal registered an unprecedented level of social media activity, which is a coup for the series that has relied heavily on loyalty from Tweeters to keep the network invested in it. Over 700,000 tweets were fired off about the show during and after the premiere. 
The numbers bode very well for a promise of a fourth season of the show, the first in four decades starring a Black woman on a network drama. While Washington lost out on the Emmy award for Best Actress — a fact that upset many of her fans — this has to be a pretty decent validation of her work. 
Scandal airs Thursdays at 10/9 Central on ABC, with an encore on BET.
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(Photo: ABC)