Fans Mourn The Good Doctor Spinoff Ahead of Season 7 Grand Finale

Summary:

• The Good Doctor season 7 will be the last one for the series
• The ABC show had a spinoff in the works, titled The Good Lawyer
• However, it fell victim to Hollywood strikes; now, the spinoff is officially off the table

The Good Doctor only has four episodes until its grand finale, and it looks like fans are already panicking because of the looming big goodbye.

The seventh season will be the last for Shaun Murphy and his tumultuous journey in the world of medicine as an autistic doctor. However, The Good Doctor upcoming finale woudn't be half as sad if there was a decent replacement — ideally, from the similar network and even from the similar universe.

It's painful to realize that fans were this close to this exact scenario. Back in March 2023, The Good Doctor aired an episode that was supposed to kick off its legal spinoff, The Good Lawyer, which would follow Joni DeGroot — a young lawyer with OCD who doesn't want any special treatment because of that.

However, even though fans liked the idea and the network initially agreed with them and greenlit the spinoff, The Good Lawyer fell victim to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Today, it's official: The Good Lawyer is not happening as a standalone show, and this fact has left fans devastated.

Many were eager for the "Good" universe to expand, at least as a replacement for The Good Doctor.

"The potential for a really unique show was there and it angers me because you'd think they'd want to make something people want to see, but for [some] reason in the modern era, writers and networks tend to just do what they want and it's somehow everyone else's fault if no one liked it," Redditor FantumPixelz said.

Many people called The Good Lawyer's pilot "one of the best backdoor episodes" they've seen, so it was particularly painful to know that ABC wasn't going to move forward with it eventually. Back at the time, fans believed The Good Lawyer had way more potential as a standalone show as the then-announced The Rookie spinoff, Feds, which also ended up shelved.

The Good Lawyer even had its cast ready: Kennedy McMann was to portray Joni DeGroot, and Felicity Huffman was cast as Janet Stewart in what could've been her first leading role since the Varsity Blues College Admissions scandal.

The Good Doctor Finale Airdate

The next (seventh) episode of The Good Doctor is set to air on April 30, with the season consisting of ten episodes.

The grand finale will air on ABC on May 21, wrapping up both the seventh season and the show.