Have you ever been scrolling through YouTube Shorts, TikTok, or Instagram Reels and seen just another cop show, this time starring Nathan Fillion? Chances are, you have! That’s The Rookie. A show starring Nathan Fillion as Officer John Nolan who enters a new chapter in his life as he moves to Los Angeles and becomes a rookie cop at age forty. It features will-they-won’t-they relationships, plot twists, shocking character deaths, and so much more.
The Rookie began in 2018 and plots out the life of Officer John Nolan going through the field training officer program as a forty-year-old rookie in the LAPD. Fun fact: Nathan Fillion’s character John Nolan is inspired by a real life LAPD officer who performed a similar feat. Besides Fillion, the show stars Melissa O’Neil as Lucy Chen, Nolan’s fellow rookie (though, she is nowhere near forty), Eric Winter as Sergeant Tim Bradford, a tough, mean, training officer with a complicated love life, Alyssa Diaz as Detective Angela Lopez, who works with the other characters to solve crimes, and several more. Throughout the course of the show, several guest stars such as Rain Wilson, Luke Bryan, Katy Perry, Mark Cuban, and Frankie Muniz have appeared.
In January, this show began its 8th season after ending on a cliffhanger in season seven. It is far from unheard of for a procedural cop show to run for many seasons, but The Rookie is different. Unlike other shows such as NCIS, Blue Bloods, and Chicago P.D., The Rookie is immensely popular on both cable and streaming. But, why?
Possibly the most shocking aspect to The Rookie’s popularity is how popular it is with Gen Z. According to The Guardian, it was the most viewed show for all broadcast programs in 2025, beating out shows like Abbott Elementary, The Voice, and Happy’s Place. However, this does not include streaming-exclusive shows such as Stranger Things. By no means, should a procedural cop show starring a middle-aged man be as popular with Gen Z as it is. So, what exactly makes it popular with Gen Z?
The Guardian believes its popularity lies in comforting format. In a world where everything is happening so fast and information flies at you every single minute, it can be nice to just relax and watch an hour-long show with a mostly self-contained story. You take an hour out of your day to watch one episode, then do the same thing again next week. It can be a nice, relaxing cycle to come back to week after week.
But by far the biggest influence on The Rookie’s popularity is unsurprisingly, social media. It’s hard to scroll through Reels, Shorts, TikTok, or any other short-form video platform without seeing at least one clip of Nathan Fillion or Eric Winter arresting someone or calling for backup. According to Pajiba, The Rookie grew on social media so well that Gen Z claimed it for themselves. On TikTok alone, The Rookie official account has 2.9 million followers, far surpassing shows like The Bear, White Lotus, and Fallout despite having nowhere near the amount of academy acclaim that these shows have.
The Rookie’s popularity is undeniable, and it continues to be a giant on both streaming and cable TV. Teenagers continue to watch the show week after week, despite essentially all odds. Somehow, teens manage to find time in between doomscrolling through Instagram Reels, doing schoolwork, procrastinating doing schoolwork, and their social lives to watch The Rookie week after week.
