Well that didn’t take long. Nearly two months after Fox canceled their freshman comedy, The Grinder, star Rob Lowe has found a new television show and network to call home. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Rob Lowe is joining the second season of medical drama Code Black in a series regular role.
The casting announcement comes just weeks after it was announced that Bonnie Somerville and Raza Jaffrey wouldn’t be returning to the show.
Lowe’s character is Colonel Ethan Willis, a military doctor who is taken out of combat to serve at Angels Memorial Hospital to teach the doctors about battlefield medicine. His style of practicing medicine is welcomed by Leanne Rorish (Marcia Gay Harden), but other doctors may not be as receptive to his teaching methods.
The casting news comes months after Lowe said he may not look to broadcast networks to find roles and would consider branching out to cable and streaming services to find roles in the future, telling The Hollywood Reporter that he’s “forever grateful that they put it (The Grinder) on the air at all” but said that living on the bubble of cancellation and renewal is not where an actor wants to be.
Perhaps the rebooting of Code Black is what made him change his mind about broadcast television.
Lowe has had an extensive career in Hollywood, appearing in well-known movies and television shows throughout his career. He portrayed Sam Seaborn in NBC’s The West Wing for four seasons before returning to the show when it ended in 2006. He played Robert McCallister in ABC’s family drama Brothers and Sisters from 2006 through 2010 and played Chris Traeger in NBC’s Parks and Recreation from 2010 through 2015. In the last television season, he starred as Dean Sanderson on The Grinder, where he was also an executive producer. He won a SAG Award with the cast of The West Wing in 2001 and 2002 for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Lowe is also known for his roles in movies, such as The Outsiders, where he played Sodapop Curtis, St. Elmo’s Fire, where he played Billy Hixx and had a role in 2013’s Behind the Candelabra, which starred Michael Douglas as Liberance.
Code Black returns to television on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 10 p.m., which is the same timeslot the show had last year. The new season will have 17 episodes.