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ABC's The Rookie has returned to screens with the premiere of its eighth season. While fans are certainly excited about the return of their favorite characters, there are rumblings that the Season 8 premiere might have been wasted. Either way, the franchise is poised for an expansion as another spin-off takes us North. Greenlit in November last year, The Rookie: North is set to become the second spin-off in the franchise, following The Rookie: Feds. Jay Ellis, one of the stars of the 2022 blockbuster action film Top Gun: Maverick, is set to lead the series. Original series showrunner Alexi Hawley is tasked with bringing the series to life and offered some fresh insights into plot details that break from franchise norms.
The Rookie: North looks to follow in the footsteps of the flagship series, centering on another “old rookie.” The move has sparked some conversation among fans who worry the premise might feel a little too familiar to the flagship series and the first spin-off. But creator Hawley has reassured viewers that the show will bring with it fresh energy and new angles. While speaking in a recent interview, Hawley explored what makes The Rookie: North stand out from other patrol shows:
“I think ultimately, what I got excited about was, I think every patrol cop show versus a procedural has really been big-city oriented, New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, so I like the idea that this place is a bigger slice of America, where people live. The county that they’re policing does include Tacoma, so there is some urban but at the same time, it’s also the suburbs and the exurbs, and it’s also the meth lab in the woods, and a National Park, and there’s a military base. That sort of county is really interesting.”
'The Rookie: North' Is Quite Different From Its Predecessors
Seeing how things play out with a smaller police force also has Hawley chomping at the bit to explore that. There are obvious concerns that North might look too similar to Feds and the original series, thus making it a bit too familiar for fans and lacking any real spark. Hawley, in a bid to quiet those concerns, revealed more about Jay's character — Alex Holland and how his background sets him apart from Nathan Fillion’s John Nolan and Niecy Nash's Simone Clark. “I thought it would just immediately set the show apart visually and then thematically; I think our lead, the character that Jay plays, is a guy who never really found something he’s passionate about before this,” Hawley says about Alex Holland. “And part of that has to do with a tragedy in his past, which we get into a little bit. So that was a little bit of a different way in, it is a guy who’s a little more lost. I think Nathan’s character was a successful professional, obviously blue collar or whatever, he was just a little lost after his divorce and everything. But this is just a little different.” Hawley adds more clues about Holland’s background: “He’s been bouncing. He went the law school route, and then something happened, and he sort of abandoned that.”
The Rookie: North becomes the second official spin-off in The Rookie franchise, following The Rookie: Feds, which was canceled after only a single season. North has a standalone pilot, and it will not be embedded into The Rookie the way Feds was. New episodes of The Rookie air on Tuesday nights on ABC. Stay tuned to Collider for updates.
Release Date October 16, 2018
Showrunner Alexi Hawley
Directors Tori Garrett, Chi-Yoon Chung, Michael Goi, Sylvain White, Lisa Demaine, Lanre Olabisi, Bill Johnson, David McWhirter, Liz Friedlander, Daniel Willis, Toa Fraser, Anne Renton, Jon Huertas, Cherie Nowlan, TK Shom, Rob Seidenglanz, Valerie Weiss, Barbara Brown, Charissa Sanjarernsuithikul, SJ Main Muñoz, Nelson McCormick, Marcus Stokes, Adam Davidson, Anna Mastro
Writers Corey Miller, Bill Rinier, Zoe Cheng, Mary Trahan, Ally Seibert, Liz Alper, Nick Hurwitz, Racheal Seymour, Madeleine Coghlan, David Radcliff
English (US) ·