'The Rookie' Was a Millennial Dad Show Until Gen Z Made It a Hit

I was talking to a friend over the weekend who said that one of his teenage daughter’s favorite series right now is The Rookie. The Nathan Fillion cop show. His daughter is 14. That might sound strange, but it actually tracks with the stats. In June, for instance, The Rookie was the fifth most popular show among teenagers ages 13-17.

That is wild to me, but I also get it: The Rookie is comfort TV. It’s exactly the kind of show that used to live in the “Millennial dad” ecosystem — network procedurals you throw on while folding laundry or pretending you’re not falling asleep on the couch. (It’s also a favorite of mine). But Gen Z did what Gen Z does: they found it later, claimed it as their own, and turned it into a bingeable show. Among television watched by younger viewers, 65 percent is library titles like The Rookie, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Office. It makes sense that ABC would want to feed that appetite with a spin-off. The irony is that The Rookie lived on the cancellation bubble for years until Gen Z stumbled onto it between TikTok scrolls and saved it.

Now it’s launching its second spin-off, and unlike the Niecy Nash spin-off that lasted only one season (The Rookie: Feds), they’re not messing with the formula this time. They’re just moving it to rural Washington state, where Alex Holland will join the Pierce County Police Department as its oldest rookie after a home invasion turns his midlife crisis into a career change. Alex must then prove to his skeptical training officer, his fellow rookies, and himself that he’s finally found something worth fighting for.

And in the role of Alex Holland, The Rookie showrunner Alexi Hawley (brother of Fargo’s Noah) has cast television’s most handsome man: Jay Ellis. You may know him from Insecure or Running Point or, most recently, All Her Fault. He is ridiculously handsome.

The only catch here is that Jay Ellis is obviously too young to play the “oldest rookie” in the Pierce County Police Department … wait, Jay Ellis is 43? GET OUT. How is that even possible?

Gen Z gravitating toward these shows also speaks to the way they consume culture: on-demand, algorithmic, and communal. They don’t watch The Rookie week to week like their Millennial/Gen X parents — they binge it in chunks and clip it into TikToks (Yes, The Rookie is popular on TikTok). Long-running procedurals and comfort sitcoms like Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Criminal Minds, New Girl, and Parks and Recreation give them a bottomless backlog to chew through, familiar characters to latch onto, and a reset-button episode structure that doesn’t require emotional homework. COVID did a real number on their brains.

And whether networks want to admit it or not, they’re programming for these kids. The other pilot ABC picked up for next season is RJ Decker, a series based on the 1987 novel Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen, starring 50-year-old Scott Speedman — who is an alum of Grey’s Anatomy, the third most popular library title among Gen Z (after Friends and The Office). ABC may not be chasing the TikTok generation directly, but they know the ecosystem that raised them. And nothing says “future-proof” like turning a Millennial dad comfort show into a Gen Z franchise.