ABC Exploring Spinoff For The Rookie Starring Niecy Nash In Backdoor Pilot
Deadline is reporting that ABC is exploring a spinoff of its popular police procedural The Rookie, with Niecy Nash and a new setting, the FBI. The potential new series for next season will be introduced in a two-episode arc of the current fourth season of The Rookie. It will serve as a backdoor pilot for the yet-untitled project, which comes from The Rookie creator/executive producer Alexi Hawley, executive producers Terence Paul Winter and Mark Gordon and studios eOne and ABC Signature.
The planted spinoff, co-created and written by Hawley and Winter, follows the premise of The Rookie, which stars Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie in the LAPD. Nash will guest star as Simone Clark, a force of nature, the living embodiment of a dream deferred – and the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. Simone has never shied away from a challenge or a fight. She is a single mother of two who put her dreams on hold to make sure her kids pursued their own.
In the two embedded pilot episodes, Officer John Nolan (Fillion) and the LA division of the FBI enlist the help of FBI trainee Simone Clark (Nash) when one of her former students is suspected of terrorism following an explosion at a local power station.
“I’m so excited to guest star on The Rookie and bring Simone Clark to life! She is a spirited and spicy fish out of water,” said Nash. “The cast is amazing and I can’t wait to play!”
She most recently headlined Claws, which wrapped its four-season run on TNT this past weekend.