As High Potential Already Takes A Break On ABC, Here's What To Expect When Kaitlin Olson's New Drama Returns

Kaitlin Olson in ABC's High Potential Season 1
(Image credit: Disney/Carlos Lopez-Calleja)

High Potential hit the airwaves in the 2024 TV schedule to showcase It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Kaitlin Olson in a much more dramatic role than the FXX sitcom does. She’s been nailing it so far, but ABC is skipping a new episode this week after just two have aired. Read on for why, when the next episode airs, and what to expect from it.

Why Kaitlin Olson’s High Potential Is Taking A Break

If you’ve become a fan of High Potential with the Always Sunny actress after just two episodes, there’s no need to start worrying that ABC is already giving up on the show and pulling it from primetime. While no new installment is scheduled for Tuesday, October 1, it’s for a straightforward reason: the vice presidential debate between Democratic nominee Tim Walz and Republican nominee JD Vance. The debate starts at 9 p.m. ET, and it will carry over into High Potential’s 10 p.m. time slot.

And ABC certainly isn’t alone among the major broadcast networks in bumping its usual fare to air the debate instead. In fact, the only new episode of a freshman network TV show that’s airing on Tuesday night will be Fox’s Murder in a Small Town with Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk, and that’s at 8 p.m. ET, before the debate starts!

It’s also normal for regularly scheduled programming to be bumped during pre-election season; the same happened with America’s Got Talent and other shows when Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris debated Republican Donald Trump in early September. If you’d still rather watch Kaitlin Olson solving crimes as Morgan than a debate, the first two episodes of High Potential are currently streaming with a Hulu subscription.

What To Expect When High Potential Returns

ABC isn’t waiting too long to bring High Potential back after the vice presidential debate. You can count on seeing the third episode of Season 1 on Tuesday, October 8 in the usual 10 p.m. ET time slot. Called “Dirty Rotten Scoundrel,” the episode description from ABC previews this:

Morgan’s intellect and cleaning experience prove useful when the detectives are called to a hotel room murder scene, eventually uncovering the victim’s many cons. Morgan navigates Ava’s dating while Soto reveals details about Roman’s disappearance.

New details about Roman’s disappearance sound pretty great to me after the last episode ended with Soto confirming to Morgan (and an eavesdropping Ava) that he hadn’t just abandoned them all those years ago after all. It seems like a safe bet that High Potential won’t be solving the huge mystery before the end of the season – if even that early – but I’m ready for more clues. The promo for what’s to come focuses more on the case of the week with Morgan and Karadec teamed up. Take a look:

High Potential 1x03 Promo "Dirty Rotten Scoundrel" (HD) Kaitlin Olson series - YouTube High Potential 1x03 Promo
Watch On

Tune in to ABC on Tuesday, October 8 at 10 p.m. ET for the next episode of High Potential, following a two-hour episode of Dancing with the Stars Season 33 starting at 8 p.m. ET. You can also stream the series on Hulu, as well as watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 16.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).