ABC Refuses To Give Up On The Rookie’s Most Hated Gimmick

Despite multiple failed attempts, ABC just won’t give up on The Rookie‘s most hated storytelling gimmick. As one of the network’s longest-running procedural, the Alexi Hawley-created series has proven to be a great investment for the network. It opened the 2025-2026 TV cycle with an ambitious premiere set in Prague — a rarity for shows on traditional broadcasts. Since then, The Rookie season 8 has released creative weekly episodes, mixing compelling cases and intriguing personal drama.

As beloved as police procedurals are, they have the tendency to be boring, especially for projects that have been on the air for several seasons. After all, they have a set formula to follow year after year. The challenge is for them to find ways to keep viewers engaged for a long time. The Rookie season 8 has done a great job with this, playing with storytelling approaches to ensure that while there’s always a guarantee that the good guys will win at the end of the hour, reprimanding the bad guys isn’t predictable. While its attempt at doing something different is commendable, it needs to finally retire one trick that fans clearly don’t like.

The Rookie’s Documentary Episode Returns In Season 8 Despite Being Universally Hated

Image via ABC

Upon entering its final stretch of episodes, The Rookie season 8, episode 15 marks the return of the documentary-style outings for the series. Starting in season 3’s “True Crime,” when a film crew came to Mid-Wildshire to interview its personnel about a case involving a child star, the format has become somewhat of a tradition for the ABC series. It continued with season 4’s “Real Crime,” season 5’s “Double Trouble,” and season 7’s “A Deadly Secret.”

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The Rookie Is Officially Changing Formats After 8 Years

After 8 years, ABC is officially shifting the storytelling format for The Rookie, setting an exciting future for the Alexi Hawley-created show.

For this cycle, “Survive The Streets” will see John Nolan and the rest of the squad sitting down with a media crew to tell the story of “a possible suicide that spirals into conspiracy.” The documentary-style episode is The Rookie‘s attempt at capitalizing on the popularity of true crimes — a valiant effort, considering how it endeavors to offer its viewers something different from its normal weekly fare. Unfortunately, this type of storytelling trick just hasn’t resonated with its viewers.

All four documentary-style offerings are among the lowest-rated The Rookie episodes, which taints its yearly performance on IMDb. Instead of configuring it to address people’s criticism, the ABC series just continues to produce them season after season. Based on The Rookie season 8, episode 15 trailer, it appears to still be the case.

Why The Rookie’s Documentary Episodes Are Hated (Even Though They’re Creative)

ABC (via MoviesStillsDb)

On paper, the idea sounds enticing. In terms of execution, The Rookie technically does it well, complete with the change in visuals that is on-par with actual true-crime documentaries. The problem lies, however, with its plausibility. Despite being grounded shows, there’s still some kind of suspension of disbelief when watching procedurals, and viewers are typically generous in this regard. However, it becomes almost non-negotiable when The Rookie attempts a take on the true-crime sandbox.

A major issue is tied to how participating in these documentaries jeopardizes some personnel from Mid-Wilshire’s undercover operations. Lucy Chen and Nyla Harper, in particular, recently partnered up for a mission that relied on them not being recognized. It’s difficult to believe that nobody was able to identify them during the case, considering their previous involvement in the multiple Mid-Wilshire-set documentaries.

Once again, the idea is commendable, but Hawley and his writers need to be more careful with how they craft the storylines for this type of episode. Otherwise, ABC could just find another storytelling gimmick for The Rookie.

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