Today, ABC secured not one but two additional development projects in the last month of 2024 – one is yet another spin-off of The Rookie being set in Washington State and the second is the Scrubs sitcom reboot originally aired in the 2000s.
Right now, all of their current scripted shows are taking the mid-season break – with more coming back (Will Trent & The Rookie) and another coming in (Shifting Gears soon and later The Conners’ one last ride), while management is thinking about their next move going into 2025.
Here’s a list of projects that currently on the table lately:
Sitcom
- Sisters-In-Law
- Do You Want Kids?
- A Scrubs reboot
Drama
- 9-1-1 spin-off in Hawaii
- Vital Signs
- The Rookie spin-off in Washington State
We all know Scrubs has been one of the now former ABC Signature’s popular property of sitcoms (previously it was Touchstone Television until 2007 followed by ABC Studios until 2020) throughout the 2000s – firstly on NBC for the first six followed by ABC during the last two seasons.
Now they would want to try it again and see if this will work in this decade, so 20th TV can get the opportunity under the microscope since they will oversee all of ABC’s scripted programming from now on.
It’s bit of a surprise since someone like Bill Lawrence wants to work on this by setting the scene where it left off back in 2010, even though he currently has huge links with Warner Bros TV. ABC already has Tim Allen back as one of their star personnel on Shifting Gears, so better to build on Abbott as surely not another revival would make things work when Scrubs already run its race a long time ago.
Gotta say, probably a non-starter I guess even if it makes into pilot.
The same would say for yet another spin-off of The Rookie & this time it would have to do with a cop starting his new job in Washington State. I guess they’re trying to mirror a more comedic version of the NCIS franchise from CBS but with more cop work rather than something different like the Feds spin-off which only lasted one season amid the strikes last year.
Maybe that would work in another Disney led platform like Hulu but there’s more than enough content to fit on ABC across every day of the weekend — don’t think another Rookie spin-off is gonna benefit their audience that much either as well as to the show’s fan base. The fans already have been hurt once before and they don’t want to get run over yet again for a potential spin-off that may not last long.
Considering the new season of The Rookie starting soon next month, they may not be finished just yet but maybe it’s best to finish things off where it all began at some point rather than bringing up another spin-off whose plot looks very similar but under a new location. Why they can’t just make this happen for some time as part of the show, not go completely separate from it under a new project.
All in all, I’d pick either or even any two of the new sitcoms over a Scrubs reboot as well as a brand new 9-1-1 spin-off & move Grey’s Anatomy back to Sundays over the other two as above.
It would be great if ABC can find one that is legally awesome having overlooked The Good Lawyer 12 months ago also due to the strikes holding back unfortunately but that could wait until the time they feel is right – we’ll have to find that out soon enough.
