The Rookie and Its Spinoff Share a Wednesday Night in January
The Rookie and its spinoff, The Rookie: North, will premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2027, and will share a two-hour block that night, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
That is a change for the original show. The Rookie has aired on Tuesdays in past seasons. In January it moves to Wednesdays and starts at 9 p.m., an hour earlier than its usual 10 p.m. slot. The Rookie: North, a new show built around a character from the original, fills the rest of the block.
The Wednesday block also carries a new season of Shifting Gears. Season three opens with two episodes on Jan. 6. Abbott Elementary returns the following week, rejoining ABC's Wednesday lineup.
Tuesdays are changing too. Will Trent comes back at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 5, and High Potential follows at 9 p.m. Surviving a Scandal, produced by ABC News Studios, the network's news production arm, takes the 10 p.m. slot starting the same night.
Several other shows have dates in the new year. Celebrity Jeopardy! is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 29, at 8 p.m. American Idol begins its 25th season, and its 10th on ABC, on Feb. 8 at 8 p.m. A retrospective special looking back at the series is set for Feb. 1 at 8 p.m.
Shark Tank moves to a new night, airing at 10 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 8. High Potential will also get a showcase slot after the Super Bowl on Feb. 14, a special presentation placed in the gap that follows the big game.
The Bachelor returns on March 21 at 8 p.m., followed by What Would You Do? at 10 p.m. The Bachelor last aired on ABC in March 2025. The franchise has been off the network since the November 2025 finale of The Golden Bachelor's second season, so the March date marks its return.
Not everything is arriving on time. ABC has pushed back the Grey's Anatomy spinoff it ordered in the spring, and it will now debut in the 2027-28 season. A spinoff is a new show built from characters or a setting in an existing one.
The schedule is set in the middle of the season, a stretch that TV networks call midseason, meaning the shows that start between the fall and spring premieres. For viewers, the practical change is simple. Wednesday nights in January will carry two Rookie shows, and Tuesday nights will look different from the previous year's listings.
