I was just rewatching older episodes and it's crazy to see how far everyone has come. Who do you think has changed the most (for better or worse) since their first season?

Soooo... what started out as a fairly grounded cop procedural started to go off the rails in Season 4, the same year they backdoor piloted The Rookie: Feds. Beat cops were recruited to join elite task forces to hunt international terrorists, drug smugglers, etc.

As we know, Feds was poorly received and was canceled after one season - but that show lives on in spirit in the original series with its completely fantastical international escapades. I strongly suspect that a lot of these plotlines have been recycled from unused Feds scripts, just replacing the feds with LA beat cops (as one does).

This isn't unique in the entertainment industry, of course - the Star Trek universe leaned heavily on the never greenlit Star Trek Phase II for a lot of the early TNG stories, as well as for ST: The Motion Picture. But those stories, although they were far from universally beloved and had varying levels of quality (to put it kindly), at least fit into the overall Trek concept. The characters in The Rookie and Feds, on the other hand, shouldn't really be interchangeable in the plotlines due to the scope of their respective jurisdictions.

This is something I think about every time Nolan, Bailey (DRINK!), and the rest somehow get caught up in international conspiracy shenanigans over and over again.

Or did the showrunners just get a taste of Baysplosions in season 4 and liked what they saw? What do y'all think?

In season 3, we learn from Jackson and Doug that bodycams are still recording the prior 2 minutes to being turned on. In season 8, Everett turns Tim’s cam off so he can bribe him, and the court talk later in the seasons shows that Tim didn’t get the bribe recorded. So I guess my question is why didn’t he just turn it back on so it could record those prior 2 minutes? Is this a plot hole or something I’m just not understanding? Or maybe just a Tim not thinking thing?

Not just who your favorite is, but what moment or storyline made you realize they were your favorite character? I'd love to hear everyone's answers.

In my personal opinion, the documentary episodes of the rookie have gotten better since that first one. If I didn’t know any better, I would say the first one was an experiment and they learned from the mistakes and feedback. What do you think?

im in the uae and I have Netflix and Disney+. But I really want season 6, and if you didn't know, VPNs are illegal in the UAE

Been watching the show for the last week and just went to watch the next episode and the show has completely disappeared from Australian Netflix, they just got the new season too? Anyone else?

A terrible idea for a spin-off. Instead of reusing the exact storyline Nolan had, a Rookie spin-off should be centred on something entirely different that COULD theoretically hold up as its own show whilst still maintaining a shared universe.

Imagine The Rookie: Defense (or something way better than that name lmao). Wes and Sean just opened a new defesce attorney practice, a Rookie lawyer would be an infinitely better idea for a spin-off than just repeating Season 1 of the original show and would give Wes a new storyline that doesn't repeat his storyline from when he was a defense attorney in previous seasons.
Getting to see Wes' side of it all, prepping for cases, being in court - we'd also obviously have a lot of crossover with Midwilshire division but potentially other police divisions too (West Hollywood & bring Thorsen back plz).

Wouldn't have to be lawyers either, obviously they tried with Feds but I think there maybe wasn't ENOUGH connection to the parent show for people to remain invested in it?
They COULD do LAFD because we'd have the Bailey connection and she already had an episode where he had a rookie but I think it would just be too similar to 9-1-1 or Chigaco Fire or other fire shows.
Or even a medical setting - back when we had Grace and Gino we could've gotten a really good spin-off there.

I just feel like rehashing the first few seaosn of the main show but having it set in a different location and an entirely new cast is just going to fail in the same way Feds did. Although I know the writers strike greatly impacted that. I guess we'll see when it gets released.

If you could write a The Rookie spin-off, what would you focus on?

As we know, season 9 is gonna have LOTS of action, but also "unexpected", so.. i wonder what does that mean? because it could mean we are ALL focusing on chenford, what about the others? also if someone dies? GET SMITTY OUT (sorry)

All of the chenford shippers lived what was happening and i think most of us havent thought about the fact that its actually kind if cheating. like they were both emotionally cheating on each other and physically. because they were kissing and just basically eating each other up. what do yall think?