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ABC Cancels Spinoff of Fan-Favorite Series After One Season
With the actors’ strike set to come to an end this week, TV networks are finally figuring out what to do with their scripted slates moving forward into 2024. That means figuring out when many shows will head back into production and how many episodes can be completed this season. That also means deciding which shows aren’t coming back at all. On Thursday evening, ABC made a couple such decisions, shelving one potential spinoff series and cancelling another.
News broke on Thursday night that ABC had pulled the plug on The Rookie: Feds after just one season. The spinoff of popular hit series The Rookie starred Niecy Nash-Betts and premiered in September 2022. Despite good viewership returns early on in its freshman season, The Rookie: Feds won’t be coming back for a sophomore effort.
Additionally, ABC has opted not to move forward with The Good Lawyer, a spinoff of The Good Doctor. Both The Rookie and The Good Doctor will be returning to the network with new seasons.
Nash-Betts starred in The Rookie: Feds as Simone Clark, the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. The Rookie‘s Alexi Hawley co-created the series with Terence Paul Winter and the duo both serve as executive producers. Nash-Betts is also an executive producer, along with Mark Gordon, Michelle Chapman, Bill Norcross, Corey Miller, and The Rookie star Nathan Fillion. The series also stars Frankie Faison as Christopher “Cutty” Clark, James Lesure as Carter Hope, Britt Robertson as Laura Stenson, Kevin Zegers as Brendon Acres, and Felix Solis as Special Agent Matthew Garza.
“Spinning that off and having Rookie: Feds was about talent, with those creators and their ability to tell these kinds of stories, which are wildly entertaining and still talk about issues, and give them a new platform,” Simran Sethi, ABC Entertainment’s EVP Programming and Content Strategy previously told Deadline. “I think the theme of The Rookie, the theme of reinvention that’s core to the franchise, it’s about the stage of life you’re in and the box you put yourself in or the world puts you in, and how to break out of it. So, franchising that show for us was about the popularity of The Rookie, but also because those themes seem so relevant and it felt like it was fertile ground for a new story to tell, which we are very excited with that we see in that show.”
Are you disappointed to see The Rookie: Feds axed at ABC? Let us know in the comments.
