It’s been two years since Fox surprisingly axed The Resident, and to this day, it’s hard not to think about what could have been, especially when it comes to storylines like Conrad and Billie’s blossoming relationship. The medical drama only ran for six seasons, but since it’s streaming for those with a Netflix subscription, it remains a favorite among fans. Whether or not The Resident has a chance of making a comeback is unknown, but the team is already dreaming up ideas for a spinoff.
The Resident managed to tie up some loose ends in the Season 6 finale, but it definitely left some loose ends in the case that Season 7 happened. It’s not unusual for a show to come back following a cancellation in the form of another season or a spinoff elsewhere, and with the stories that The Resident left wide open, it’s clear that there was more story to tell about the Chastain Park Memorial staff. So, with that in mind, co-creator Amy Holden Jones told TV Insider what she thinks about the series coming back for more, and she’s not the only one interested:
I think we would love — and everybody involved would love — to just go back into the show, Unlike some of these spinoffs, a lot of the cast would come and so we could return to the same world if we wanted to.
While much of The Resident cast has moved on to other projects, it’s nice to know that they would jump at the chance to return to their old characters for a new series. It just proves how much the show meant to them and still means to them, even after two years.
That being said, there are a lot of ways a potential spinoff could go, and with an ensemble cast, it could be hard to bring everybody back. But Jones and executive producer Andrew Chapman agreed that having Malcolm-Jamal Warner reprising his role as surgeon AJ “The Raptor” Austin “would be great,” as Jones elaborated:
Having him being the lead doctor and then you’d have a whole other cast around him and you’d have a whole other different set of problems that he would have. Or they had moved to a different city, and he was trying to be something less demanding to have more time with the kids, but that wasn’t really working.
It definitely wouldn’t be the first time a spinoff involved just one or two characters from the main show, and it would also give viewers the chance to see more of AJ. Warner’s character became quite a fan-favorite, and he was bumped to series regular in Season 2 after recurring in the first season, ultimately appearing in close to 100 episodes. As a triple-board-certified surgeon, there wouldn’t be a lack of emergencies for him to attend to. He could even teach a new group of hopeful surgeons.
However, Jones actually already has an idea for an AJ-centered spinoff, and I would definitely be up for it:
I thought about him being a rural doctor because I worked once on an adaptation of a book called Island Practice, where the local doctor in Nantucket is also a surgeon, and he ends up being the everything doctor for a community. And I think that would’ve been very interesting for Malcolm, but I think he would be the spinoff.
As of now, this is all just something that Holden and Chapman are thinking about, and it’s unclear if they have plans to try to make it come to fruition. Of course, if that is the case, they would have to talk to Warner first, assuming that an AJ-centered spinoff would still be something they’d want to do. Plus, even if the spinoff were to focus on one character, there would still be the possibility that others could appear.
At this point, it’s hard to tell if The Resident will ever go beyond Season 6, but the good news is that there are ideas swirling around, so you never know what could happen. If anything, knowing that the team and the cast are more than likely interested in doing more is better than nothing.
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