There will be two series in the world of The Rookie on ABC in the 2026-2027 season.
ABC has ordered to series the newest spinoff, The Rookie: North, starring Jay Ellis. The news comes a day ahead of the network unveiling its full 2026-2027 schedule and after it renewed all of its shows from the current season.
So, when will The Rookie: North premiere? Who else is in the cast? Will there be crossovers? Read on for everything we know so far.
When will The Rookie: North premiere?
That has yet to be announced. But chances are it will air back-to-back with Nathan Fillion‘s The Rookie — both shows come from Alexi Hawley — to allow for crossovers.
Who’s in The Rookie: North?
The Rookie: North stars Jay Ellis in the role of Alex Holland, who starts over just like Fillion’s John Nolan did on the original series. The cast also includes Chris Sullivan as the watch commander, Janet Montgomery as Alex’s training officer, Froy Gutierrez and Mya Lowe as rookies, and Karen Fukuhara and Malik Watson as training officers.
“Jay is a no-brainer. He’s such a TV star. He’s so talented,” Hawley told TV Insider. “The rest of the cast was equally great. It was one of those things where it felt like we’d been working together forever, even with the pilot. There was an ease. I did put them through some police training. We sort of separated them into the rookies train together and the TOs and Chris Sullivan trained together. So you already start to do those lines, the differences between them.”
What is The Rookie: North about?
According to the official description, Alex “believed his mid-life wasn’t worthy of a crisis. But after a violent home invasion ignites a dormant purpose, Alex battles a lifetime of failed commitments by joining the Pierce County Police Department as its oldest rookie. Policing from the urban coast to the rural forest where backup isn’t just 5-minutes away, Alex must prove to his skeptical training officer, his fellow rookies, and himself, that he’s finally found something worthy of the fight.”
Hawley told TV Insider that he thought “the pilot came out great.” He added, “It does feel like The Rookie and yet not. I think the sort of really changing location to Pacific Northwest, and it just has a different vibe. It has a different energy, which is really cool. So yeah, I’m excited.”
Will there be The Rookie and The Rookie: North crossovers?
Nathan Fillion will appear in North‘s pilot. But Hawley did tell us in January 2026 that crossovers could be “challenging,” explaining, “Physically, we’re going to shoot at least the pilot up in Vancouver. And probably we would shoot the series there, too, just because of the location is Pacific Northwest, which you can’t do in L.A.”
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