The Rookie Season 7 Update Sure to Disappoint Fans: ‘Bad Idea!’
Fans can’t seem to get enough of The Rookie. With Season 6 coming to a close, eager viewers are already wondering when the hit ABC police drama will return for a new season. Keep reading for everything there is to know about Season 7 of The Rookie, including why the estimated premiere date will disappoint fans.
When does The Rookie Season 7 return?
While fans were hoping to have a new season of The Rookie in 2024, they will have to wait a little bit longer. ABC released their fall broadcast schedule in May 2024, and unfortunately, Season 7 of The Rookie is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the Nathan Fillion-led series will have a midseason premiere in January 2025, along with Will Trent and the final season of The Conners. Several unscripted series will also have midseason premieres, including American Idol, The Bachelor, Celebrity Jeopardy!, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, What Would You Do? and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
On the plus side, Season 7 will feature 18 episodes that will air back-to-back. Season 6 took several weeks off and contained only 10 episode, so this episode count and schedule change is a significant improvement for the show. However, not all fans view it that way. In a Reddit thread, one fan noted: “That’s a long time to wait, especially if 6×10 ends on a cliffhanger.” Another chimed in: “They’re going to power through March Madness? Seems like a bad idea.” A third fan argued that the hiatus is worth the wait since there won’t be any breaks. “Honestly, knowing that the season will be uninterrupted will 100% make up for a seven month wait. Uninterrupted run is definitely better than the show coming back sooner but with three-four breaks in between,” they wrote.
Craig Erwich, president of Disney Television Group, defended the network’s decision to hold both The Rookie and Will Trent for January 2025, telling TVLine: “It felt like the best way to platform those shows for success was to launch them in January, when we have this huge promotional platform in New Years Rockin’ Eve as well as college sports and Christmas programming, and also to give these shows an uninterrupted run.” He added: “They’re going to go straight through … and that kind of momentum of original episodes week-in and week-out is just a very powerful engine for both of these shows.”
The Rookie first premiered in the fall of 2018 and had fall release dates for four out of its six seasons. Season 3 premiered in January 2021, while Season 6 didn’t premiere until February 2024 due to production delays caused by the writers strike. As Erwich assures fans, the move from the fall to midseason has nothing to do with the show’s performance or ratings. “The Rookie and Will Trent are two of the cornerstones of our schedule,” he said. “The Rookie is an amazing story, where at this point in its life cycle [six seasons in] it continues to grow. We see not just the current season but past seasons drive a tremendous amount of viewing on Hulu.” Additionally, ABC is ushering in two new shows — Ryan Murphy’s medical drama Dr. Odyssey and freshman drama High Potential — so they likely had to make room in the fall lineup.
Who’s in The Rookie Season 7 cast?
Not much is known about Season 7 of The Rookie, but Fillion will presumably reprise his role as rookie-turned-veteran LAPD cop John Nolan. The rest of the ensemble cast has not been confirmed, but no one has indicated that they plan on leaving the show. However, it’s not uncommon for characters to come and go, so there could be some major shakeups or new additions heading into Season 7.
What is The Rookie Season 7 about?
The plot for Season 7 is also unclear, but it will hopefully address the status of Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) and Tim Bradford’s (Eric Winter) relationship. The fan-favorite couple, affectionately dubbed Chenford, broke up midway through Season 6 and likely won’t get back together by the time the season ends. “It leaves a nice sort of, I wouldn’t say closure or a guarantee of anything, but it leaves it in a place where there’s stuff to talk about,” Winter teased of the finale (per TVLine), seemingly implying that there will be a cliffhanger ending for Chenford that won’t get resolved until Season 7.
