Why ABC Cancelled The Rookie: Feds After Just One Season

In the age of countless streaming options, dozens of TV shows end up cancelled each year, and in 2023, "The Rookie: Feds" was one of the casualties. According to Deadline, the series spent months in limbo amidst the dual labor movements (WGA and SAG strikes, for writers and actors, respectively) that made Hollywood productions grind to a halt that year. When the spin-off of "The Rookie" was finally cancelled in November 2023 after just one season, Deadline credited the strikes as the cause, but according to series co-creator Alexi Hawley, the reasoning behind the show's premature demise wasn't quite so simple.

In title, "The Rookie: Feds" sounded like just another law enforcement procedural spin-off among several, in this case born of the long-running ABC series "The Rookie." That show stars Nathan Fillion as the oldest Los Angeles Police Department newbie to join the force, and it's still going strong with seven seasons and counting. "The Rookie: Feds" followed a similar premise — this time, it's an older FBI Academy rookie — but stands out for one good reason: Niecy Nash-Betts. As Simone Clark, Nash-Betts was the only Black single lead on a primetime, hour-long ABC show around the time that "The Rookie: Feds" was cancelled, according to Deadline. She was also in the award season conversation for her work on Netflix's "Monster" at the time, and won a Primetime Emmy for that role just two months after "The Rookie: Feds" was cancelled.

It's clear that ABC lost something by letting go of Nash-Betts, but why did they in the first place? According to Hawley, who created both the flagship show and the spin-off (plus "The Recruit," a very fun Netflix spy show that recently got the axe), ABC itself was "nothing but supportive" for the show, but industry-wide shifts are a crucial part of decisions like this one. Pushing back against common studio narratives that the strikes themselves led to the end of anyone's favorite show, Alexi told Deadline that "it's a bigger conversation than that." Instead, he said, "A lot had to do with the forces that led to [the strikes]." The 2023 twin labor movements addressed such issues as streaming residual structures, employee protections, and controversial business practices like "mini rooms" for writers and single credited screenwriters. The SAG-AFTRA strike was also one of the first in any industry to address the sweeping, unregulated power of AI.

At a Television Critics Hour event in 2024, Alexi told attendees that "the consolidation of the industry [and] the economic impact the streaming wars have had on different companies" led to the show's cancellation. These issues, long unaddressed by studios, underpinned many of the negotiating points in the 2023 strikes. "I do feel it was not a creative decision. It was a business decision. I can't argue with that." When it comes to the particulars of the show's cancellation, Alexi said: "I think the honest answer is I'm not sure, nor do I think the industry knows what is happening right now." He noted that "consolidation is happening across the industry," and that the show "was an unfortunate casualty, more of a casualty of the whole process."

ABC is famously owned by Disney, a company that has been all over the board with its decisions in recent years while oversaturating the content market with dozens of Marvel and Disney projects. Nash-Betts may have lost her chance to lead an ABC show, but she did end up on "Grotesquerie," a Ryan Murphy-made horror series from Disney-owned FX. Plus, several other "The Rookie: Feds" cast members were absorbed back into the main series after the show was cancelled, meaning the idea behind the spin-off series lives on — even if it was ultimately a casualty of Hollywood's bottom line.