While certain shows coming to the 2025 TV schedule have been in development for years, such as the MCU’s Ironheart and Netflix’s Stranger Things, while others were fully conceived and crafted within the scope of 2024, such as Tim Allen’s big return to primetime. The Last Man Standing vet is back in sitcom mode alongside 2 Broke Girls’ Kat Dennings for ABC’s Shifting Gears, and it looks like we’ll get to enjoy the new premiere long before The Conners will return with its seventh and final season.
Now that ABC has revealed its upcoming midseason schedule, it’s assured we won’t be too waiting long after the new year arrives to see what Allen’s newest TV dad will bring to the table. (Presumably a circular saw of some kind.) However, that other beloved primetime family will be popping up months after the fact, and The Conners technically still doesn’t have a premiere date locked down.
Let’s take a look at the first half of ABC’s upcoming midseason fare below.
| Date | Show | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, Jan 2 | Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Series Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Row 1 - Cell 0 | Only Murders in the Building (Season 2 Broadcast Premiere) | 9:00 p.m. |
| Sunday, Jan. 5 | AFV (Midseason Premiere) | 7:00 p.m. |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | The Wonderful World of Disney | 8:00 p.m. |
| Tuesday, Jan. 7 | Will Trent (Season 3 Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Row 5 - Cell 0 | High Potential (Midseason Premiere) | 9:00 p.m. |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | The Rookie (Season 7 Premiere) | 10:00 p.m. |
| Wednesday, Jan. 8 | Shifting Gears (Series Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Abbott Elementary (Midseason Premiere) | 8:30 p.m. |
| Row 9 - Cell 0 | Celebrity Jeopardy! (Season 3 Premiere) | 9:00 p.m. |
| Row 10 - Cell 0 | What Would You Do? (Midseason Premiere) | 10:00 p.m. |
Just one week after 2025 arrives in style (hopefully, anyway), fans will meet Tim Allen's widower and classic-car restorer Matt, whose life gets turned upside-down when his daughter (Dennings) shows up with her teenage kids to live with him after her separation. Sounds like pretty traditional sitcom storytelling, and with the additional caveat of filming on the Home Improvement lot.
I'm quite interested to see how Shifting Gears works as a lead-in for Abbott Elementary, and what the viewership numbers will be like in those first few weeks. It's not like ABC has room elsewhere on its schedule for half-hour sitcoms, so if this pairing doesn't work out, I do wonder what the fix would be.
Now let's take alook at the back half of ABC's midseason schedule, which features more streaming-to-broadcast import series from Hulu, following the second season of Only Murders in the Building.
| Date | Show | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, Jan. 17 | Shark Tank (Midseason Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Monday, Jan. 27 | The Bachelor (Season 29 Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (Broadcast Series Premiere) | 9:00 p.m. |
| Thursday, Jan. 30 | Scamanda (Series Premiere) | 9:00 p.m. |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini (Broadcast Series Premiere) | 10:00 p.m. |
| Row 5 - Cell 0 | The Rookie (Season 7 Premiere) | 10:00 p.m. |
| Thursday, March. 6 | 9-1-1 (Midseason Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Row 7 - Cell 0 | Doctor Odyssey (Midseason Premiere) | 9:00 p.m. |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Grey's Anatomy (Midseason Premiere) | 10:00 p.m. |
| Sunday, March 9 | American Idol (Season 8 Premiere) | 8:00 p.m. |
| Row 10 - Cell 0 | The $100,000 Pyramid (Season 8 Premiere) | 10:00 p.m. |
That lineup should be comforting to fans of The Rookie that have been waiting for new episodes for months now. As well as for fans who expected Scamanda to be part of the 2024 Fall TV schedule. But there's that glaring absence to discuss.
Why Isn't The Conners Season 7 On ABC's Schedule?
Despite locking down dates for the majority of its original series (and Hulu shows), ABC still has yet to officially set The Conners' final season start, and it's the only scripted series that's still up in the air. For now, the goal is for it to debut in March 2025.
As such, it sounds like the network is timing things so that the Lanford-set comedy will wrap its historic run during the same May finales window as most other network projects. Here's how the ABC announcement worded it:
- The farewell season of The Conners will return in March 2025. Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and Press Your Luck will also return in the new year. Airdates to be announced at a later date.
The Conners showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan talked to CinemaBlend earlier this year about the bigger-than-usual approach to the final episodes, which counterbalances the idea that the new season will be far shorter than usual, with just six episodes.
We'll be waiting patiently to hear more, but in the meantime, I need to perfect my manly grunting in time for Shifting Gears' arrival.
