Beth Behrs Reunites With Kat Dennings on ABC's 'Shifting Gears' Season 3

Beth Behrs is heading back into a sitcom kitchen — sort of. The actor will guest star in the third season of ABC's Shifting Gears, reuniting on screen with her former 2 Broke Girls co-star Kat Dennings (Variety).

Behrs will play Dr. Johnson, an emergency room doctor who treats Dennings' character Riley for a back injury. No airdate has been set for the episode (The Hollywood Reporter).

The casting brings Behrs back together with Shifting Gears showrunner and executive producer Michelle Nader, who was previously co-showrunner and executive producer on 2 Broke Girls, the CBS sitcom that ran for six seasons (Variety). Dennings played waitress Max Black on that series; Behrs played her roommate and business partner Caroline Channing, a character created by Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings (Deadline).

Shifting Gears stars Tim Allen as Matt, the widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop, whose estranged daughter Riley — played by Dennings — moves into his house with her children. The ensemble also includes Seann William Scott, Daryl "Chill" Mitchell, Maxwell Simkins and Barrett Margolis. Dennings serves as a producer on the series, which is produced by 20th Television (Variety; Deadline).

ABC renewed the sitcom for a third season in April. Season 3 is set to premiere in early 2027 as part of the network's midseason lineup (The Hollywood Reporter).

This is the second sitcom reunion Shifting Gears has staged. In October 2025, three of Allen's former Home Improvement co-stars — Patricia Richardson, Richard Karn and Debbe Dunning — appeared in the season two premiere as members of a support group (The Hollywood Reporter).

For Behrs, the guest role follows the end of another CBS sitcom. She played Gemma on The Neighborhood, which aired its eighth and final season earlier this year (Variety; Deadline). Her other credits include voice work in Pixar's Monsters University, the Chinese animated film Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink, a role in the indie film Hello, My Name Is Doris alongside her Neighborhood co-star Max Greenfield, and hosting duties on the podcast Harmonics (Deadline; The Hollywood Reporter).

For fans of 2 Broke Girls, which ran from 2011 to 2017 on CBS, the pairing needs little introduction. Dennings and Behrs spent six seasons as a comedy duo on that show. Their Shifting Gears appearance will be the first time they have shared a live-action sitcom script since 2 Broke Girls ended — though whether Dr. Johnson and Riley get any of Max and Caroline's spark is a matter the episode will have to settle on its own.

The executive producer roster on Shifting Gears includes Allen, Nader, Bob Daily, Jim Patterson, Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, Richard Baker, Rick Messina and John Amodeo (Variety).