Despite soft live ratings, ABC has ordered a full season of their freshmen cop drama, The Rookie. The order is for seven additional episodes which will bring its total to 20.
Reuniting Nathan Fillion with former Castle showrunner Alexi Hawley, The Rookie has improved ABC’s troubled 10 p.m. slot by 84 percent among total viewers and 36 percent in the coveted adults 18-49 demographic. Thus far this season, the series is averaging a 1.8 in adults 18-49 and 9.7 million total viewers with seven days of DVR. This clearly shows you how dire that slot was because the live demo number is usually around 0.8, which isn’t fantastic but ABC has seen other shows come in lower during that time period so this has to be considered a win.
ABC had a lot of faith in the series from the start. The drama was among the season’s most high-profile orders. The co-production between Entertainment One and ABC Studios was picked up straight to series for 13 episodes with Fillion attached to star as the rookie LAPD cop.
Some may wonder why the show was given a back-seven instead of a typical back-nine order and it has nothing to do with its overall performance. The Rookie started its season a good month after most of the fall shows so this order will keep it on schedule to wrap up its first season at the appropriate time.
The Rookie joins the other ABC new hourlong series, A Million Little Things, as well as new comedy series Single Parents, in landing a full-season/back episodic order. There is no decision on new ABC comedy The Kids Are Alright and sophomore Splitting Up Together, which both have 13-episode initial orders.
