The Fosters made a splash when it debuted on what was then called ABC Family, enticing viewers by featuring a unique and underrepresented blended family dynamic. It'll soon continue part of that narrative with a few of its star characters, with some recurring familiar faces peppered in. The show will be off air for a few months before a finale event, but, when does The Fosters spinoff premiere?
Right now, exact information is scarce. There doesn't seem to be a premiere for the spinoff set yet, or even a name for the new series. And a three-episode series finale has to premiere before the new series can even start. But there are big plans in the works. Deadline reported in January that Freeform had ordered 13 episodes of the spinoff featuring Fosters staples Cierra Ramirez and Maia Mitchell reprising their characters Callie and Mariana, respectively. Mitchell said in an interview with TVLine.com that the two are excited to spearhead a new show, and to welcome back some of their old Fosters co-stars as they maintain ties back to the original story.
"We found out the show was ending, and they were like, 'Do you want to keep the story alive?' We were like, 'Yeah, in whatever way we can. Let’s figure it out,'" Mitchell said. They came up with a way for us to do that. There are going to be appearances from all your Fosters favorites, so it’s not just going to be our show. There are going to be new series regulars and new characters, and still the same amount of representation as we’ve had on The Fosters, and the same topics. It’s [the] same but different."
Callie and Marina will be older in the spinoff, which the stars say opens up a world of opportunity as far as their storylines go. "I think the mistakes that our characters make are going to be different. They’re going to be skewed older, I think," Mitchell said in the same interview. "Cierra was just saying how our characters are doing something, and we’re like, 'Why would they do that?' And then you have to remember, 'Oh, they’re 17 and 16.' Now we won’t have those excuses."
Mitchell's Fosters co-star Hayden Byerly said that even those who aren't expected to be recurring characters on the spinoff are excited about the direction the show is taking. "Everyone on the show, the Fosters family, is super excited and super stoked for the new beginnings and the new happenings that are going to continue on," he told TVLine.com. "Because while it’s the end of the Fosters family, this is the new beginning of The Fosters. This is just a little segment of that, and it’s incredible, and we’re all really excited for it."
Fans seem optimistic about the show for the most part, though there are definitely some concerns about how the showrunners will iron out certain kinks. People seem pretty concerned with the fact that the these sisters are the only ones featured regularly in the show aside from guest appearances, when part of the original appeal of The Fosters was the family dynamic. "I really only like the show when they are doing things as a family. This show was originally about a diverse family made up of Foster, adopted, and bio kids," wrote Reddit user AnkaBananka6. "Oh how far they strayed. Everyone seems to be off doing their own thing now."
But some argue that this kind of development is simply mirroring the way a real life family functions — kids grow up and do their own thing. "That could be why they decided to make a spinoff. I'm sure as a parent when your kids take those steps into adulthood you hope that they use the knowledge and morals you tried to instill in them," user TLCHP1987 wrote in response to the above Reddit comment. Whatever happens with these characters fans have come to know and love, a spinoff at the very least offers a way to see what possibilities lie ahead.
