Fox cancelled 9-1-1, and on ABC it grew into a network's top drama
After six seasons, Fox dropped its first-responder drama 9-1-1 in May 2023. ABC picked it up the same day. A year later the seventh-season finale drew about 9.6 million viewers across platforms within a week, and the show ranked as broadcast television's leading drama among adults aged 18 to 49.
Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear created the series, which premiered on January 3, 2018, with Minear as showrunner and Bradley Buecker directing the pilot. It follows the firefighters of Los Angeles Fire Department Station 118 alongside police officers and 911 dispatchers as they handle emergencies across the city, mixing large-scale disasters with the characters' tangled private lives. Angela Bassett, playing the police detective Athena Grant, and Peter Krause, as the station captain Bobby Nash, were also executive producers.
The cast has shifted over the years. Connie Britton played the dispatcher Abby Clark in the first season; Jennifer Love Hewitt then arrived as Maddie Buckley, a dispatcher and sister of the firefighter Buck, played by Oliver Stark. Ryan Guzman joined as Eddie Díaz in season two. Krause left in 2025 after a two-part episode in which Bobby dies, and Kenneth Choi's Chimney Han took over as the station's captain.
Critics were mixed on the first season, which scored 60 on Metacritic. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus conceded some melodrama but praised the cast, the action and a streak of trashy camp that made the show a guilty pleasure. The Financial Times gave it four stars and predicted it could become a hero-genre classic, while The Hollywood Reporter likened it to the Chicago franchise. The second season earned warmer notices for its greater ambition, and season five received the ReFrame Stamp for hiring women, gender-diverse people and people of colour.
Success spawned a franchise. 9-1-1: Lone Star, starring Rob Lowe, launched on January 19, 2020, straight after an NFC Championship game and ran for five seasons. ABC then ordered a Nashville spin-off with Chris O'Donnell for 2025 to 2026. The original was renewed for a tenth season, due on October 15, 2026, and reruns air on USA Network and We TV.
Source: 9-1-1 (TV series)
