The most popular show among Generation Z? The Rookie – Police Procedure | television

HAnna Liv knows she has to study for midterms this week. But she also has to make time to watch her all-time favorite episode of The Rookie, an ABC procedural drama about Los Angeles cops. (That would be Season 2, Episode 8.) The 15-year-old, who lives in New England, describes the show as “hyper fixated.”

Liv first watched the entire series, currently in its eighth season, in three weeks. “And it’s unhealthy,” she admits. She keeps up with new episodes while constantly rewatching the series, which she has done 10 times so far. She connected “about 12 or 13” of her friends to The Rookie, and one of them binge-watched the entire series within a week: “She didn’t sleep.”

Liv is not alone in her love. As the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the procedural network has an unexpected fan base among young people. According to Nielsen data, it was the most streamed show among under-18s of all TV series broadcast last year, beating out Abbott Elementary and High Potential (but not just streaming shows like Stranger Things). Dwayne Johnson recently took his teenage daughter, a huge fan, on a tour of the show’s set. Creator Alexei Hawley, who declined a request to comment for this article, told The Times that he is used to parents telling him how much their children love the series.

It’s an unlikely success story. In the age of TikTok and YouTube, teens have never watched less old-school TV. According to Nielsen data, 90% of the time kids spend on TV comes from “non-traditional” options (mostly streaming services). The Rookie is the kind of police procedural that has been a powerhouse for generations — and yet Zoomers love it.

But Rookie’s official TikTok page has more than 2.9 million followers (for comparison, the official accounts for The White Lotus and The Last Of Us both have less than 150,000, and Stranger Things has 8.1 million). Many teens discover the show on social media first. Jade Amira Lewis, a 16-year-old from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, first watched the show on YouTube, where she watched some cut scenes. “I noticed that it actually has an office-like atmosphere,” Lewis said. “It’s very comedic in some situations, but it also shifts into more serious tones. You have time for every emotion in the show.”

Lois, who wants to be an FBI agent when she grows up, finds the procedural format comforting. Most dramas are completed in a tight hour. “Then you’ll be able to see it all again next week,” Lewis said. “It’s a beautiful course.”

Fronted by Generation The oldest in his class, Nolan navigates generational divides with his fellow rookies as they serve on the force. There’s a long, slow romance between a rookie and her training officer, but it’s far from a love story: In Season 2, an assassin kidnaps a policewoman, counting down the days until he kills her while the rest of the crew rushes to the rescue.

Katie Campione, a senior television and labor reporter for Deadline, says the show’s popularity fits with a larger trend of younger audiences gravitating toward long-running shows, many of which are decades old: Gilmore Girls, New Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal Minds.

“You can spend hundreds of hours with the same characters and get to know them,” Campione said. “You don’t see that much these days on TV.”

Maria Smith, another young fan, runs a rookie fan account on TikTok with over 60,000 followers. Now 22, the Memphis college student started watching the series when she was 19. For years, she never made plans on Tuesday nights, when the show aired. Smith has season tickets to her beloved NBA team, the Grizzlies. But when they were playing on Tuesday, she was selling tickets, so she could see the show. (The rookie recently changed timeslots from Tuesday nights to Mondays, leading to more NBA struggles, a nightmare for Smith.)

But even though it’s a viewing-defining symptom, it doesn’t necessarily take up a lot of your mind: “It’s easy to pay attention to it and do something else at the same time, whether that’s scrolling on your phone or something else,” Campione says.

One of the most surprising things about the show’s popularity among young people is the show’s positive portrayal of police. Younger Americans are more likely to distrust law enforcement, and the network’s police procedurals have long been criticized as “coppaganda” designed to subtly shape viewers’ attitudes.

Hawley, the show’s host, said the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police changed the way police are portrayed. “I tried to approach a place where the cops are trying to do the right thing,” Hawley told The Guardian in 2021 of the series’ previous seasons. After Floyd’s killing, “I felt that just ambition was no longer good enough, that we were showing a version of policing that was foreign to a lot of people.” Consultants from Color of Change, a racial justice organization, were brought in as consultants.

In one plot line, a racist cop profiling suspects of color should be fired — but instead, he gets a slap on the wrist and is left on the force. It’s not a happy ending, but it’s realistic. “The show is trying to start these conversations about people feeling like law enforcement has failed them,” Campione said. “These are topics that a lot of people would like to address more in real life.”

The Rookie airs after Liv goes to bed, so she wakes up early the next morning and watches it before doing anything else. For her birthday, her best friend gave her a vinyl record with a musical score that plays during an emotional scene in the series. She hung it on her wall because she didn’t have a recording device. (“I don’t think anyone has record players,” she said.) She’s forgotten the title of the song, she told me, but she thinks it’s either Breathe Freely by Uncle Leo or If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keyes, both of which are on the soundtrack.

Eric Winter, who plays Sergeant Tim Bradford in the series, runs a rum brand called Palm Republic. Sometimes, he holds promotional meetings to market his product. Liv really wants her dad to go to one. Unfortunately, she was not allowed in: “You must be 21 or older.”