ABC renews ‘The Rookie’ season 7: John Nolan will continue to fight
Maybe the show should be called The Veteran from now on?
ABC has renewed its drama series The Rookie for a seventh season in 2024-25. The police procedural starring Nathan Fillion — which passed the 100-episode mark earlier this season — continues to draw decent-sized audiences for the network, even as it has outlived its title.
The Rookie is so named because at the show’s outset, Fillion’s John Nolan is the oldest rookie in the Los Angeles Police Department. Six seasons in, Nolan’s rookie status is long gone, but he “has used his life experience, determination and sense of humor to keep up with rookies 20 years his junior,” as ABC puts it in the season six logline. Mekia Cox, Alyssa Diaz, Richard T. Jones, Melissa O’Neil, Eric Winter, Jenna Dewan, Shawn Ashmore, Tru Valentino and Lisseth Chavez also star.
Viewers have stayed with the series as Nolan has moved along his LAPD career path: The Feb. 20 season premiere brought in 11.92 million viewers over five weeks of cross-platform viewing, the best single-episode performance for The Rookie since its second-ever installment in October 2018. Streaming and other delayed viewing added more than 5 million viewers to the premiere’s seven-day linear total, and the episode’s adults 18-49 rating grew by more than four times (0.67 to 2.9).
The Rookie is a co-production between lead studio Lionsgate Television (which also handles international distribution) and ABC Signature. Alexi Hawley created the series and executive produces with Mark Gordon, Fillion, Michelle Chapman, Brynn Malone, Bill Norcross and Jon Steinberg.
The series joins fellow ABC dramas 9-1-1, Grey’s Anatomy and Will Trent and comedy Abbott Elementary in securing a spot on the network’s schedule for 2024-25. Keep track of all the broadcast renewals and cancellations with THR’s network scorecard.
