ABC’s hit series, The Rookie, has another spin-off in the works, with series creator Alexi Hawley showrunning The Rookie: North, starring Jay Ellis cast as the lead. The Rookie: North is set in Washington State, and follows a middle-aged man named Alex Holand in his 40s-50s who becomes a police officer, starting a new phase in his life in its second act. Wait a minute, that sounds vaguely familiar. Isn’t that the premise of The Rookie? That backstory sounds almost identical to John Nolan’s (Nathan Fillion), the lead character of the flagship series. And while the original series is still successful, it feels like The Rookie: North is making a huge mistake by banking on the same premise as the original show. Even worse, it’s a mistake they’ve made already.
The Backstory of ‘The Rookie: North’s Protagonist Backstory Is Too Similar to John Nolan’s
It seems highly derivative to create another spin-off of The Rookie franchise that is even more similar to the original series than the first spin-off, The Rookie: Feds, which starred Niecy Nash as Simone Clark. The Rookie: Feds’ premise remarkably resembled The Rookie, showcasing a single mom in her 40s changing careers and becoming a rookie agent in the FBI. However, although the setup was similar, at least Feds changed things up a bit, making Simone an FBI agent with a different background as a guidance counselor. After the failure of Feds, it seems Hawley wants to repeat the success of the original series by making the main character even more similar to John Nolan.
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Collider · TV Medicine Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? Eight questions · five wards · one assignment
Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television: brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for, and eight questions will work out exactly where you belong. Wards accepting
PTMCThe Pitt
CGHER
GSMGrey’s Anatomy
PPTHHouse
SHHScrubs
Question 01 of 08APPROACH
01 A critical patient comes through the door. What is your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you really are.
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Question 02 of 08MOTIVATION
02 Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you would give in an interview.
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Question 03 of 08COLLEAGUES
03 What do you want most from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
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Question 04 of 08LOSS
04 You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who has worked a long shift has had to answer this one.
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Question 05 of 08STYLE
05 How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.
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Question 06 of 08RULES
06 How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
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Question 07 of 08TOLL
07 What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What is yours?
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Question 08 of 08PURPOSE
08 At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this one is the most honest thing about you.
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Assignment madeYou belong in
PTMC · Admitted The Pitt Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center This ward asks whether you can stay in the room for the whole shift, and come back tomorrow.
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has shown, the one that puts you inside a single long shift and does not let you look away. You need your work to be real rather than romanticized, and you find your purpose inside the work itself rather than in the chaos around it. You have made peace with a job that takes from you constantly and gives back in ways that are harder to name. What this ward asks of you
Meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
The discipline to stay present when the department is at its worst.
A tolerance for weight that does not get put down at the end of the day.
From the Collider file
Each episode covers roughly one hour of the same emergency-department shift, in order.
Noah Wyle has now won the lead drama actor Emmy for it twice, in 2025 and again in 2026.
It reunites the ER team of Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, thirty years on.
Fully present No romance Built to endure
CGH · Admitted ER County General Hospital, Chicago This ward asks whether you can hold the line long enough for the next person to take it.
You are the one who keeps the whole floor moving. Not the most brilliant in the room, possibly the most essential. You show up, do the work, absorb the losses and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is. You care about patients as individual people rather than as cases to solve or dramas to live inside, and you believe in the system even on the days it fails you. What this ward asks of you
Reliability above brilliance, every single shift.
Faith in a structure that is visibly imperfect.
The stamina to treat the hundredth patient like the first.
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Fifteen seasons and 331 episodes, from 1994 to 2009, created by Michael Crichton.
It holds the record for the most Emmy nominations of any drama series, with 124.
George Clooney, Julianna Margulies and Noah Wyle all broke out of County General.
Shows up Endurance Patient first
GSM · Admitted Grey’s Anatomy Grey Sloan Memorial, Seattle This ward asks whether you can do the work with your whole self in the room.
You came to medicine with everything you have, your ambition, your feelings, your relationships and your history, and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door. You form deep attachments to the people you work with, and your personal and professional lives stay permanently, chaotically tangled. That tangle drives both your worst disasters and your most remarkable saves, because you understand that extraordinary medicine often happens where clinical skill meets human connection. What this ward asks of you
A willingness to feel all of it rather than seal any of it off.
Colleagues who become family, with everything that costs.
Comfort with mess, in the OR and everywhere else.
From the Collider file
Shonda Rhimes’ series passed ER to become the longest-running primetime medical drama
on US television.
It is on season 22, with ABC having already renewed it for a twenty-third.
Ellen Pompeo has played Meredith Grey across three decades of television.
Feels everything Found family Beautifully messy
PPTH · Admitted House Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital This ward asks whether you can be right when everyone in the room needs you to be wrong.
You are drawn to the problem above everything: the symptom that does not fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one. The patient as a person is not your first motivation, though you are capable of caring more than you would admit. You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong. Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary and impossible mind, and everyone near it is there because they can keep up. What this ward asks of you
Thinking harder than anyone else in the room, then defending it.
A high tolerance for being disliked while you are right.
Interest in the puzzle that outlasts your interest in being comfortable.
From the Collider file
Eight seasons built on Sherlock Holmes: House and Holmes, Wilson and Watson, and an
apartment at 221B.
Hugh Laurie taped his audition in a hotel bathroom in Namibia while shooting another film.
By 2008 it was the most-watched television show on earth, with an audience around 82
million.
Chases the puzzle Difficult on purpose Usually right
SHH · Admitted Scrubs Sacred Heart Hospital, California This ward asks whether you can hold the tragedy and the absurdity at the same time.
You understand that medicine is devastating and ridiculous in roughly equal measure, and that the only sane response is to carry both at once. You are warm, self-aware and funnier than most people in your field. You use humor to get through terrible moments, which at Sacred Heart is a survival strategy rather than a flaw. You lean on the people around you and let them lean back, because here the laughter and the grief are inseparable. What this ward asks of you
Humor that never curdles into cruelty.
The honesty to admit you are still learning how to do this.
People you can lean on, and the willingness to be leaned on.
From the Collider file
Nine seasons from Bill Lawrence, filmed largely inside a real decommissioned hospital in
North Hollywood.
Working doctors have repeatedly named it the most accurate medical show on television.
Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke returned for an ABC revival that premiered in
February 2026.
Laughs to cope Still learning Leans on people
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Alex of The Rookie: Northis described as “a former overachiever who becomes a rookie cop after his life did not go as planned.” Obviously, the final product might tweak elements of Alex’s backstory, but that sounds almost word-for-word like John’s background. Additionally, the new show is expected to feature other training officers and a police chief in the main cast. The strategy for the spin-off appears to be a massive misstep, attempting to rehash The Rookie‘s success, rather than trying something more refreshing and original.
‘The Rookie’ Caught Lightning in a Bottle
As the saying goes, lightning never strikes in the same place twice, and The Rookie caught lightning in a bottle, finding success through the show’s incredible blend of drama and comedy and the chemistry of its lead cast. Although Fillion exceptionally leads the show, portraying a middle-aged single father seeking to reinvent himself as an officer for the LAPD, the show succeeded through its other lead cast members, such as Melissa O’Neil as Lucy Chen and Eric Winter as Tim Bradford. Lucy and Tim’s evolving relationship and romance became a fan-favorite throughout the show’s run, and the series discovered something truly magical with the ragtag band of officers at the LAPD’s Mid-Wilshire Division. Attempting the same premise in Washington State instead of Los Angeles will not necessarily achieve the same results.
Notably, the show’s story was inspired by a real-life figure, Officer William Norcross, who became an LAPD officer in his 40s after leaving his family’s business. The main theme of The Rookie deals with reinvention, but this type of lifestyle reinvention can take many forms, rather than simply following John’s version. In the original series, Lucy finds her own form of transformation in joining the LAPD, as she decides not to pursue a career in psychology, which she studied in college. She ultimately finds her true calling as a police officer, which exemplifies how The Rookie can depict professionally-diverse characters seeking to reinvent their lives.
‘The Rookie: North’ Needs To Forge Its Own Identity Separate From the Original Show
the rookie season 7 episode 17 flula borg nathan fillion deric augustine eric winter richard t. jonesImage: Disney/Mike Taing
The main objective of The Rookie: North should be to forge its own unique identity to set it apart from The Rookie. Currently, the premise sounds fairly unoriginal and unexciting. Obviously, it’s expected to depict cops who are career rookies, since the show is called The Rookie. However, one would hope that Hawley would seek an alternative angle with the spin-off series that is bolder and depicts a unique setup beyond what we see with Nolan.
Right now, The Rookie: North runs the risk of following the same fate as the first spin-off, The Rookie: Feds, which was cancelled after one season, despite a backdoor pilot showing Nolan teaming up with Simone to kickstart the new series. It has already been announced that The Rookie and The Rookie: Northwill have a couple of crossovers. If that is the case, then the spin-off needs to do far more than just finding a new approach to the subject; it needs to create its own identity beyond the original series to leave a true mark.
