The Rookie showrunner confirmed episode length of Season 7 (and standalone events)

The Rookie Season 6 felt very different to previous seasons. There was more of a serialized event to the 10-episode season than ever before. That’s not the way things will be during Season 7.

The short season was like that due to the strike action in the summer. Like so many other shows on broadcast TV, the seasons were reduced to allow for spring premieres and May finales. There was only so much time available to film.

There isn’t going to be a strike delay in the 2024–2025 season. While The Rookie Season 7 won’t premiere until 2025, it’s not a shortened season. At least, not by too much.

The Rookie Season 7 episode count confirmed

While talking to TVLine, showrunner Alexi Hawley shared that the season will have 18 episodes. This now makes sense why ABC said that the show would premiere in the midseason and not have any breaks. We were a little worried that a lack of breaks in the schedule would mean a March premiere date for 10 episodes. There is a good chance that we’ll get a February or even January premiere date now that we know there will be 18 episodes to enjoy.

While sharing this, Hawley also talked about how the season will be set out. There will be some serialized events, but the show is going back to the procedural format. We’ll have some standalone storylines for the characters, with criminals of the week for the cops to deal with.

Hawley believes this is what the fans enjoy. It’s certainly the case when you think of some of the fan-favorite episodes. Fans loved those that involve the reality show-style filming or the one-off episodes with quirky criminals.

"I do think we’ll go back to being more of a standalone show with serialized elements."

There was even the tease of a big guest star. We’re hoping that it will include another The Rookie: Feds crossover. While we got a small moment at the end of Season 6, we’d love to see Simone back to give us all a catch-up on where she is in the FBI now.

"Also, there are the many different ways we tell stories — whether it’s the big event-type episodes, the more rom-com episodes, or with a big guest star — so it’ll be fun to go back to that."