ABC 2018-19 plans include a midseason slot for 'Goldbergs' spinoff 'Schooled'

Schooled, the long-awaited spinoff of The Goldbergs that was inspired by teachers at Philadelphia's William Penn Charter School, won't be starting class this fall, but it's still a go for next season.

Created by Adam F. Goldberg, the Jenkintown-born creator of The Goldbergs and a Penn Charter grad, with Marc Firek, Schooled is expected to premiere in midseason, according to the schedule ABC released Tuesday in advance of its annual presentation to advertisers in New York.

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The show, set in "1990-something" — the decade after The Goldbergs — features the teachers of the somewhat fictional William Penn Academy, and stars Tim Meadows as Principal Glascott, Bryan Callen as Coach Mellor, and AJ Michalka as  Lainey Lewis, who's grown up to become a teacher.

The pickup for Schooled, one of eight new ABC series announced for 2018-19, had been announced last month, nearly a year after the network first passed on the project.

As Goldberg noted on Twitter on Saturday, crediting viewers of The Goldbergs for the pickup: "Getting a dead pilot on the air NEVER happens, but our passionate fans made it happen. Much like when @TheGoldbergsABC pilot aired, I've got tons of feedback [after the passed-on pilot aired in January] and changed a ton," including, he noted, adding Michalka to the cast as an older version of  the character she plays on The Goldbergs.

In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey said she couldn't say yet where Schooled would land, whether it would be paired with The Goldbergs — a sitcom she described as "doing incredibly well [that] shows no signs of losing steam" — or be placed elsewhere on the schedule.

She attributed its absence from the fall to the reworking of the concept, noting that it isn't the same show ABC passed on last year or that it showed as a special episode of The Goldbergs in January. "I think one of the things that we discovered in making that pilot was where the strengths" of the story lay, which was in Goldberg's original idea of showing "teachers as everyday heroes," Dungey said.

"It was Adam who came up with the idea" of adding Michalka's character as a "window for the audience," she said.

Schooled isn't the only midseason show with local ties: The stars of Whiskey Cavalier, an action dramedy featuring Scandal's Scott Foley as an FBI agent, include Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead), who spent her early years in Cherry Hill, and Ana Ortiz (Ugly Betty, Devious Maids), a University of the Arts grad and daughter of former Philadelphia City Councilman Angel Ortiz.

ABC's fall will include two new comedies, two dramas, the unscripted spinoff Dancing with the Stars: Juniors, and The Alec Baldwin Show, a Sunday night talk show featuring the Emmy-winning actor — and Saturday Night Live President Trump impersonator — engaged in "in-depth conversations with compelling personalities," according to ABC's announcement.

The fall comedies are The Kids Are Alright, a 1970s-set show inspired by creator Tim Doyle's childhood that features an  Irish-Catholic family with eight sons living in a working-class section of Los Angeles; and Single Parents, an ensemble show about a group of, yes, single parents who "lean on each other to help raise their 7-year-old kids and maintain some kind of personal lives outside of parenthood."

Asked about what influence the success of the rebooted Roseanne had had on ABC's plans for next season, Dungey said the network had already ordered its pilots before Roseanne even launched, but that given its emphasis on family comedies, "it fits in very nicely with he building blocks we already had in place."

She said she didn't expect next season's shows to lean in to politics — like Roseanne Barr, the character of Roseanne Conner is a Trump supporter — but to echo the tone of the latter part of this season, which she described as "more focused on family" than on politics.

The fall dramas are the previously announced The Rookie, which stars Castle's Nathan Fillion as a man from a small town who becomes the Los Angeles Police Department's oldest rookie; and A Million Little Things, an ensemble show about a group of friends in Boston whose lives are changed when one of them dies unexpectedly.

Returning shows, not all of which will be on in the fall, include America's Funniest Home Videos, American Housewife, American Idol, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Black-ish, Child Support, Dancing with the Stars, For the People, Fresh Off the Boat, The Goldbergs, The Good Doctor, Grey's Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Modern Family, Roseanne, Shark Tank, Speechless, Splitting Up Together,  and Station 19.

Fresh Off the Boat and Speechless are both moving to Friday nights this fall, along with the Fred Savage-hosted game show Child Support, in what Dungey's hailing as the return of the network's "TGIF" tradition.

Shows that won't be back include Scandal, which ended its seven-season run last month, and The Middle, which will air its one-hour series finale on May 22, as well as Alex Inc., The Crossing, Deception, Designated Survivor, Kevin (Probably) Saves the World, Marvel's Inhumans, The Mayor, Once Upon a Time, Quantico, and Ten Days in the Valley.