Felicity Huffman smiles at someone in The Good Doctor spinoff The Good Lawyer
Image via ABC
The Big Picture
ABC will not be going ahead with The Good Lawyer , a spin-off of their long-running drama The Good Doctor.
ABC has decided to cancel The Good Lawyer and The Rookie: Feds due to the recently resolved strikes, but opted to keep High Potential.
The Good Lawyer had a backdoor episode test in March, introducing the characters played by Kennedy McMann and Felicity Huffman.
Unfortunately for fans of The Good Doctor who were looking forward to its spin-off, ABC has closed the case on The Good Lawyer. Putting its decision on the recently resolved WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the network announced that it won’t be moving forward with the Felicity Huffman and Kennedy McMann-led series. The news shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as the writing has been on the wall since late summer when networks were scrambling to finalize their lineups for the year. Along with The Good Lawyer, ABC also canceled the Niecy Nash-Betts-ledThe Rookie: Feds, but chose to keep High Potential, a comedy starring Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), although its premiere has been pushed to next fall.

The Good Lawyer was first announced in August 2022. The series was eventually given a backdoor episode test this past March with McMann and Huffman appearing in a guest capacity on an episode of the flagship series. In the installment, aptly titled “The Good Lawyer,” Freddie Highmore’s Dr. Shaun Murphy will see the promise in a young lawyer named Joni DeGroot (McMann), hiring her over a more experienced attorney. While Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) is dead set on enlisting Huffman’s Janet Stewart for the case, Dr. Murphy soon sees that he made the right choice as DeGroot’s obsessive-compulsive tendencies make her a cut above the rest. The full series was set to dive into how the up-and-coming lawyer dealt with her OCD and how it affected her career and personal relationships.

While the crossover episode was met with support from fans, with audiences eager to see how the spin-off would play out, it just wasn’t in the cards for The Good Lawyer. The backdoor episode that introduced McMann and Huffman to the fold was directed by Ruben Fleischer (Venom), and co-penned by David Shore and Liz Friedman.

What is The Good Doctor About?
Renewed for a seventh season in April, audiences have long tuned in weekly for the Golden Globe-nominated medical drama. In the series, Highmore plays a young resident surgeon who lives with autism. Despite those around him showering him with doubts, Highmore’s Dr. Murphy is one of the top physicians in the surgical unit at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. While each episode sees a different obstacle tossed in his way, the medical professional handles it all with grace and a well-balanced composure that puts the rest of the staff and his patients at ease.

While The Good Lawyer may never see the light of day, you can catch up on The Good Doctor now streaming on Hulu.

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The Good Doctor
The series follows Shaun Murphy, a young autistic surgeon from the small city of Casper, Wyoming, where he had a troubled past. He relocates to San Jose, California, to work at the prestigious San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital.