Coming off its biggest streaming season premiere, ABC veteran The Rookie is on the move. After three episodes in its current Tuesday 10 PM slot, the cop series starring Nathan Fillion will relocate to Mondays 10 PM starting Jan. 26, following the season premiere of American Idol. The Rookie will be paired with Idol for the rest of the season, with its remaining 15 episodes getting a straight run with no interruptions.
The Rookie‘s Tuesday spot will go to new drama series RJ Decker, starring Scott Speedman, which will premiere March 3, joining Will Trent and High Potential on the night.
With High Potential, Will Trent and The Rookie, “Tuesday night has become really a must-see destination night of television for our viewers,” Craig Erwich, President of Disney Television Group, told Deadline at ABC’s fall 2025 schedule reveal in May.
At the time, RJ Decker had just been ordered to pilot. Months later, with Speedman as the lead, it was picked up to series that fits into the same mold — a light crime procedural with a distinct central character played by a TV star — as The Rookie, starring Fillion, High Potential, headlined by Kaitlin Olson, and Will Trent, toplined by Ramon Rodriguez.
With only three hours in the Tuesday primetime lineup, High Potential as the most potent lead-in to launch a new series, and The Rookie as the longest-running series with built-in fan base that would follow it anywhere, it made sense to have RJ Decker follow High Potential at 10 PM on Tuesdays and move The Rookie. (All series stream next day on Hulu.)
This would be a new night for The Rookie, which has shuttled between Tuesday and Sunday during its first seven seasons. Any potential linear ratings dip from the move to Monday could be made up on streaming where the patrol procedural has been getting most of its viewership since it became a pandemic phenomenon, with a younger generation embracing the show during Covid. The Rookie‘s social media prowess also could help with awareness over the shift.
The momentum continues this season, as The Rookie Season 8 premiere drew 7.88 million total viewers after 3 days of viewing on ABC, Hulu, Hulu on Disney+ and digital platforms, rising over last season’s premiere (+6% vs. 7.40 million on 1/7/25) and matching its best premiere performance in MP+3 since Season 2 on 9/29/19. Based on 7 days of views on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, the Season 8 opener also was The Rookie’s biggest premiere on streaming and it ranks in the Top 5 ABC premieres of all time.
Beyond streaming, with 475.6K social interactions, The Rookie’s Season 8 premiere is currently the No. 1 most social episode of any drama series on broadcast or cable season to date.
What will air in the 10 PM on Tuesday after The Rookie‘s departure in a week and before RJ Decker‘s arrival on March 3 is TBD, with a mix of repeats and specials likely. The night will have at least one preemption for the State of the Union on Feb. 24.
There is also the Winter Olympics coming up. While Will Trent, whose new season debuted earlier this month, is expected to stay in originals throughout similarly to The Rookie, whose current season also debuted in January, High Potential may switch to repeats during the Olympics.
That would help save more originals to lead into RJ Decker. High Potential, whose current second season premiered in the fall, will have eight original episodes left after next week while RJ Decker‘s midseason order is believed to be for 9 episodes. With Will Trent staying in originals, RJ Decker could presumably move to 9 PM should High Potential end its sophomore run before the Scott Speedman freshman is done. Those scheduling decisions are still being made.
In RJ Decker, inspired by the novel “Double Whammy” by Carl Hiaasen, Speedman stars as RJ Decker, a disgraced newspaper photographer and ex-con who starts over as a private investigator in the colorful-if-crime-filled world of South Florida. The series follows him tackling cases that range from slightly odd to outright bizarre with the help of his journalist ex, her police detective wife and a shadowy new benefactor — a woman from his past who could be his greatest ally … or his one-way ticket back to prison.
Jaina Lee Ortiz, Bevin Bru, Kevin Rankin and Adelaide Clemens also star. RJ Decker is produced by 20th Television, and is written and executive produced by Rob Doherty. Carl Hiaasen, Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman serve as executive producers. Paul McGuigan directs and executive produces. Speedman serves as a producer.
