‘The Good Lawyer’ Not Going Forward As ABC Passes On ‘The Good Doctor’ Spinoff

More fallout from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. ABC has opted not to proceed with The Good Lawyer, its planned legal spinoff from The Good Doctor that was going to be toplined by Kennedy McMann and Felicity Huffman.

The network had delayed pickup decisions on two spinoffs, bubble drama series The Rookie: Feds and the Good Lawyer pilot. Today, the call was made, and neither is moving forward.

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The Good Lawyer originated as a Good Doctor planted spinoff, with the backdoor pilot airing as an episode of the hit medical drama last spring. It was well received, with ABC brass high on McMann and Huffman’s performances.

The options on the cast were up August 15. Because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, the hold period was extended for the duration of the work stoppage, so ABC had another month to make a decision on The Good Lawyer. (For The Rookie: Feds, the deadline was in December.)

As Deadline has reported, the longer the strikes went past Labor Day, the longer the odds were for outstanding series to get a pickup. ABC also canceled Home Economics at the end of September.

ABC had planned to launch The Good Lawyer this coming spring as the broadcasting networks are running out of shelf space as they try to accomodate all of their popular returning scripted series.

For that reason, ABC in late September opted to push its only new scripted series, the one-hour High Potential to next fall. That project, starring Kaitlin Olson, is the only ABC 2023 pilot to get a series order.

The Good Lawyer, from Sony Pictures Television and ABC Signature, was written by The Good Doctor co-showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman. In the backdoor pilot episode, Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) seeks legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer, Joni DeGroot (McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder.

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