According to The Hollywood Reporter, ABC has given a 13-episode series order to a currently untitled spinoff of The Goldbergs, set to take place in the 1990s. The series, which was in development last season under the name Schooled, will follow three faculty members at William Penn Academy – Principal Glascott (Tim Meadows), Coach Mellor (Bryan Callen), and Lainey Lewis (AJ Michalka) – through their everyday trials and triumphs in the educational system.
Originally, Schooled featured Nia Long (House of Lies) as the third lead, a woman who sends her two daughters to the school she taught at, but when the show didn’t make the cut at ABC, Long moved on to NCIS: Los Angeles. In an occurrence that’s exceedingly rare in today’s television environment, the busted pilot subsequently aired this past January on ABC, reigniting conversations about redeveloping the show and finding space on the schedule for a spinoff of one of ABC’s top comedies.
The series order for the Goldbergs spinoff is likely bad news for the comedies ABC had in development, as the network only has a few open comedy slots for next season. Pressure would be alleviated if the network were to expand its comedy hours, but with American Idol looming on Sundays, a comedy brand that doesn’t skew the right way for Friday success, and very little open space otherwise, that doesn’t seem like the best course of action.
This marks the third series order by ABC for next season, joining straight-to-series dramas The Rookie and Take Two. It’s also the second spinoff from a current ABC comedy, joining black-ish progeny grown-ish, which was also in development at ABC last season before shifting to the younger-skewing network.
