‘The Rookie: Feds’ Cancelled & ‘The Good Lawyer’ Not Moving Forward At ABC
Now that the actor’s strike is over, US network ABC has made some decisions on a couple of the shows which were left up in the air following the annual May “TV Bloodbath” – ‘The Rookie: Feds‘, and ‘The Good Doctor’ spin-off, ‘The Good Lawyer’… and it isn’t good news.
‘The Rookie: Feds’ starred Niecy Nash-Betts as Simone Clark, a former guidance counsellor turned FBI agent, making her the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. Whilst the main show has been a big hit for ABC, the spin-off struggled to reach anything like the same heights. However, ABC had put off deciding on the show’s future until both the writer’s and actor’s strikes came to an end. By the end of its first season, it sat in 8th place in the ratings out of the 10 dramas on ABC, beating only the final season of ‘A Million Little Things’ and the (also now cancelled) midseason drama ‘The Company You Keep’.
The series also starred Felix Solis as Special Agent Matthew Garza, Frankie R. Faison as Simone’s dad, James Lesure as Carter Hope, Britt Robertson as Laura Stensen and Kevin Zegers as Brendon Acres. It was co-created by Alexi Hawley and showrunner Terence Paul Winter.
‘The Good Lawyer‘ was designed as a spin-off to ‘The Good Doctor’ and centred on Joni (Kennedy McMann), a 20-something woman who battles OCD but is a brilliant lawyer. The pilot episode aired during the season six run of ‘The Good Doctor’, and saw Joni as the defence attorney for Shaun (Freddie Highmore) who found himself in legal trouble. Felicity Huffman also starred.
Like ‘The Rookie: Feds’, ABC had put off deciding whether they would pick up ‘The Good Lawyer’ until both the writer’s and actor’s strikes came to an end. However, the longer the strike went on, the less likely it became that the network would pick new shows. With so much of the “Fall” 2023 schedule being bumped to 2024, it seems like they don’t feel they have the space for more scripted shows.
On the positive side, both parent series – ‘The Rookie‘ and ‘The Good Doctor‘ – were renewed earlier in the year for new seasons, and are expected to return in 2024. If you want to keep track of these or any other shows, you can add them via our Never Miss system, and you’ll be notified when it gets a UK premiere date.
