According to Deadline, ABC is no longer moving forward with The Good Lawyer, a spinoff of The Good Doctor. The Good Lawyer was set to star Felicity Huffman (The X-Files, Desperate Housewives) and Kennedy McMann (Nancy Drew, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).
The network also recently canceled Home Economics in September.
ABC delayed decisions on whether or not The Good Lawyer pilot, along with the drama series The Rookie: Feds, would be picked up. The decision was made today that neither series is going forward, Deadline reports.
The backdoor pilot for The Good Lawyer aired as an episode of The Good Doctor on March 6, 2023. The pilot was reportedly well received. In the episode, Freddie Highmore’s (Bates Motel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) character, Dr. Shaun Murphy, gets legal representation from McMann’s character Joni DeGroot, a young promising lawyer with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The Good Lawyer was set to launch on ABC in the Spring because of the large amount of scripted series returning on the network. The only new scripted series, High Potential, was moved to the fall.
The cast options for The Good Lawyer were initially up on August 15 but were delayed by a month due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes. Deadline reported that outstanding series were more likely to be picked up the longer that the strikes lasted.
The Good Lawyer is produced by ABC Signature and Sony Pictures Television. It was written by the showrunners of The Good Doctor, Liz Friedman (Jessica Jones, Orange is the New Black) and David Shore (Sneaky Pete, Doctor Richter).
The Good Doctor first aired on ABC on September 25, 2017, and was recently renewed for a seventh season. Along with Highmore, it stars Antonia Thomas (Lovesick, Misfits), Paige Spara (Home Again, Kevin from Work), Fiona Gubelmann (Wilfred, Daytime Divas), and Richard Schiff (The West Wing, Ballers).