‘High Potential’ Season 3 Officially Sets 2027 Release Date After Major Delay

Network television’s fall slate has yet to run its course, but it’s already time to start looking forward to midseason premieres. For ABC, it’s expected to be an especially big winter and spring, with some of its heaviest hitters, like The Rookie and Will Trent, returning alongside new spin-offs The Rookie: North and the Texas-based Grey’s Anatomy offshoot. Looming largest, however, is High Potential. Television’s top-rated drama in the key 18-49 demographic was held back for 2027 for the first time ahead of Season 3, and all eyes are on what’s next for Kaitlin Olson‘s genius detective Morgan Gillory.

While ABC may have delayed High Potential from its usual arrival time, it isn’t going to keep fans waiting much longer. The Disney-owned network announced its 2027 premiere dates today, including a much earlier-than-expected launch for Season 3 of the megahit crime procedural. As previously announced, the series will have a special post-Super Bowl episode airing on Valentine’s Day, February 14, but it’ll first return even sooner on Tuesdays starting on January 5. That date will also mark the overall kick-off of the ABC midseason schedule, with Will Trent leading off the night in the 8 p.m. ET/PT time slot and Surviving a Scandal after High Potential at 10 p.m.

When Morgan and the LAPD Major Crimes unit do return, it’ll be under new management. Todd Harthan departed as showrunner after Season 2, leaving the door open for former Poker Face helmers and new Scream 8 writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman to take the reins. A little extra time off might serve the series well given the high-profile change at the top, but the series is expected to stick to its same winning formula nonetheless. Alongside Olson, Daniel Sunjata, Javicia Leslie, Judy Reyes, Deniz Akdeniz, Amirah J, and Matthew Lamb are all slated to return.

Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours.
Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from
the encounter.

Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you
completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the
conversation is.

• Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He
  never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
• You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve
  is exactly the door he would knock on.
• The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence.
  It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
• He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.

Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is
after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.

• The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence
  against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
• He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool
  you would normally reach for.
• His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend
  the rest of your life proving him wrong.
• He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.

Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work
out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.

• Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from:
  a mind the equal of the hero’s, pointed the wrong way.
• You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he
  has already built the room.
• This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs
  the game to be worth playing.
• It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.

Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that
is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.

• Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the
  answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
• You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no
  interest in how capable you are.
• No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences
  quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
• Call it. He will wait.

‘High Potential’ Will Be Down One Key Cast Member in Season 3

• Image via ABC

• Image via ABC

• Image via ABC

• Image via ABC

Image via ABC

Image via ABC

Image via ABC

Image via ABC

One person who won’t be around for High Potential‘s triumphant return is Steve Howey. Season 2’s finale left Captain Wagner’s fate in limbo following a brutal stabbing that Morgan discovers upon going to meet up with him in the park. It appears to have been a setup by his father, Wagner Sr., building him up as the next potential big threat facing the department going forward. The series also has yet to properly reveal Morgan’s ex-boyfriend and Ava’s father, Roman. While the mystery of what happened to him was central to Season 2, the closest viewers got to seeing his face was when a mysterious figure implied to be him showed up at Ava’s art show. Expectations are sky-high after two straight runs lauded by critics and audiences alike, boasting some of ABC’s highest viewership numbers in years.

High Potential returns to ABC on Tuesday, January 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Stay tuned here at Collider for more until then.

High Potential