Between 9-1-1‘s leap to ABC and its fast-approaching 100th episode, Season 7 is poised to be the procedural’s biggest yet.
And what bigger way to kick off its historic season than with a three-part nod to The Poseidon Adventure that puts Angela Bassett and Peter Krause’s characters in mortal danger? (Not that everyone on this show isn’t constantly in mortal danger, but you get the idea.)
TVLine recently visited 9-1-1‘s Los Angeles set as part of the Television Critics Association winter press tour, where the procedural’s stars — Bassett, Krause, Oliver Stark, Aisha Hinds, Ryan Guzman, Kenneth Choi and Jennifer Love Hewitt, along with showrunner Tim Minear — answered reporters’ burning questions about the upcoming season, premiering Thursday, March 14 at 8/7c.
Those questions included: Which familiar faces can we expect to see in Season 7? Which other crises will the 118 face? And how are Maddie and Chimney’s wedding plans coming along?
Read on for several teases from Minear and the cast, then drop a comment with your own hopes and predictions about 9-1-1 Season 7 below.
Cruise (Out of) Control
Bobby and Athena’s honeymoon cruise from hell will span the first three episodes of Season 7, and the show is “making no mystery” of its nod to the 1972 disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure. “We’re doing an absolute tribute to [film producer] Irwin Allen in the opening minutes of the episode,” Minear says.
Describing the cruise crisis as a “big, exciting arc that goes for about three episodes,” Minear adds that the premiere will also serve as a reintroduction for anyone who might be catching 9-1-1 on ABC for the first time. “We’re not taking for granted that everybody’s going to know who these characters are,” he says. “So I’ve been careful to make sure that it’s in the scenes. I’ve had a great time writing this stuff — and I hate writing.”
Another Day, Another Emergency
Of course, sending Bobby and Athena on their own personal Poseidon Adventure is just one of many crises the 118 will face this season. Minear teases a ripped-from-the-headlines event that we can also expect: “Recently, you may have read that there was a jet fighter that got lost,” he says. “The fighter pilot had to bail out of the plane, and they sort of didn’t know where the plane went. We’re doing that in the premiere, and it’s pretty great.”
Buck’s ‘Season of Self-Discovery’
“This season is, truly this time, a season of self-discovery for Buck, and I think he’s finding ways to really break that cycle and move forward into the next evolution of himself in a way that feels drastic and truly meaningful to who he is,” Stark says, adding that Buck’s new role as his friends’ sperm donor “hasn’t necessarily played in any kind of conscious way so far” in the season’s first five episodes.
Good News for Maddie and Chimney
Few 9-1-1 couples have suffered, both together and individually, like Maddie and Chimney. So as their big day (finally!) approaches in Season 7, Minear is showing them the mercy for which fans have been begging.
“It’s going to go super smooth,” he says of the long-awaited wedding. “On Twitter, you see the fans going, ‘Why can’t they be happy?’ It’s like, oh, you don’t want to see them on the show anymore is what you’re saying. So it’s going to be really smooth. It’s going to go great.”
(Hewitt admits she’s “scared” of what that even means in the 9-1-1 universe, but she’s hopeful.)
