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The Rookie brings another season to a close tonight, Tuesday, May 2. When will The Rookie Season 6 pick up the story?

We get to see The Rookie Season 5 finale tonight, Tuesday, May 2. It’s sure to be an intense episode that sees Thorsen’s life on the line after being attacked by a masked gang.

Of course, we know that with the finale comes a long summer break. As of right now, we don’t know whether the series will remain a fall show, but we strongly suspect that to be the case. There’s no reason for ABC to move it to the midseason when it comes to the performance in the live ratings. Now we just need to know when we could expect the sixth season to premiere.

The Rookie Season 6 premiere date predictions

Usually, we would say that The Rookie Season 6 would premiere during the last couple of weeks of September 2023. The end of September is when we usually see ABC bring fall shows back. There is just something working against this series (and all broadcast networks) right now.

It’s this pending writer’s strike. At the time of writing this, the strike is still potentially happening. With it could bring a shutdown of everything related to creating content. Other unions could pause work in solidarity for the striking writers. While streaming platforms banks TV shows and movies, broadcast networks do not.

Shows need to film in July for a September release date. If the scripts aren’t ready, filming can’t happen. If post-production is also halted, shows won’t be ready to air. This could push the premiere dates of all broadcast shows back.

The good news is The Rookie Season 6 was confirmed ahead of the writer’s strike. This could mean some episodes are ready to be able to film as soon as they can. We’ve even seen some shows start filming already to make the most of this slower time and get ahead of problems with the writer’s strike.

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The Rookie* is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. and on the CTV App in Canada.