“What’s your emergency?” is the official motto of 9-1-1, demonstrating that no one is safe. That also includes 9-1-1 itself. The series faced its own emergency after Fox unexpectedly canceled the series, which at the time was Fox’s top-rated scripted series and its most watched series overall. Thankfully, ABC — home of the Shondaland medical dramas and firefighter thrillers — picked up 9-1-1 for its seventh season. The result is nothing but the same absurdist routine for 9-1-1, but with a bit more sparkle and, surprisingly, a lot more comedy.
Co-creator and Emmy-nominated writer Tim Minear returns to 9-1-1 as showrunner for 9-1-1 Season 7, taking over the duties from Kristen Reidel who is still an executive producer of the series. Having written the Season 7 premiere, Minear is joined by John J. Gray as the director, who’s best known for his work on American Horror Story. The Angela Bassett and Peter Krause-led cast, all return — except for Corinne Massiah as May Grant — to pick up where their heroes left off in Season 6. 9-1-1‘s power couple, Athena and Bobby, are finally taking their long-awaited honeymoon cruise, which unfortunately ends in calamity. Meanwhile, the rest of the Station 18 firefighters and dispatchers take on the normal haywire calls of Los Angeles. There’s something beautifully karmic about ABC’s 9-1-1 returning to the roots that Fox pulled out. It keeps the ball rolling by continuing with what works best.
9-1-1’s Switch From Fox To ABC Shows Subtle Differences
ABC Pats Itself On The Back For Picking Up 9-1-1, Whose Production Value Garners Mixed Results
The decision to drop 9-1-1 didn’t come without an explanation from Fox. Ultimately, it was a financial decision since each episode costs around $9-10 million an episode, which is outrageous for a procedural. But 9-1-1 is not just any other procedural on network television. If it was, Bassett and Krause wouldn’t have stuck around. Without missing a beat, 9-1-1‘s Season 7 premiere is an homage to the rich, glorious, and ravaging landscape of Los Angeles that sucked viewers in, and the character drama that maintained viewership in the long run.
Gray makes interesting camera work choices in the premiere, utilizing the shaky cam during a conversation between Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) as the latter panics over parenting a teenager while distinguishing a burning car. The life of putting out fires and saving lives is ironically less frightening than being a single parent or exploring new ways to spice up love lives, which the direction of the episode puts into perspective. The editing style also provides sharp humor in unexpected moments. Athena talks to her therapist about how the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure traumatized her as a child, and her face stiffens when she’s asked if Shelley Winters won the Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars: “She did not.” When you’re an executive producer of the series, you can make that joke.
But like any television series being tossed between different homes, the good still comes with the ugly. The special effects are less than impressive sometimes, like any other typical procedural. There’s a dummy rocket bomb that launches into a prickly couple’s home that is obviously nowhere close to being worth $9 million dollars. Although, there’s a high chance that the budget was blown on the ambitious Titanic-scale shipwreck that’s being teased for the next episodes. The static production design is top-notch at least, just as long as nothing is moving or being blown to pieces.
The eye-sore of the episode has nothing to do with production design or obvious budget cuts though. It’s the painfully obvious shout-out to 9-1-1‘s new parent company, which materializes as a vintage ABC intro in a flashback while a younger Athena watches television. ABC is no stranger to breaking the fourth wall in its own property — almost every ABC sitcom has featured a Disneyland episode and Abbott Elementary had a not-so-subtle Hulu product placement in one episode. But in 9-1-1‘s case, ABC is shoving it in Fox’s face. Fox is now watching its number one moneymaker make another company richer. The jab is a bit silly, but 9-1-1 has always been a silly show.
The Season 7 Premiere Balances Titanic Disasters With Melodramatic Soaps
Character Relationships Never Fall Behind The Large-Scale Tragedies
Per usual, 9-1-1 makes the most of its time with its inventive emergencies. As mentioned before, the 118 are preoccupied with disarming a bomb with the help of a man who has temporary memory loss. A younger couple has their own “Sex Sent Me to the ER” moment that gets a quick fix thanks to Jell-o. It wouldn’t be 9-1-1 without a call that features a sexually frustrated couple that reflects the firefighters’ personal lives.
Hen (Aisha Hinds) has her playful moments with Chimney while she tries to guide him in his relationship, but she doesn’t have much to work with in this episode. There’s still time, but it would’ve been nice to catch up with her, since it seems like a lot has happened in the other firefighters’ lives since the Season 6 finale. To make up for this, there is a deeper exploration into Christopher’s (Gavin McHugh) life as a teenage boy who fell down the unfortunate rabbit hole of disrespecting women because of his role models. Christopher has always been one of the more well-written child characters on television. He proves himself as more than just a plot device who’s there to help viewers empathize with his father, Eddie. The writers don’t forget about this kid’s trauma, being abandoned by his mother and experiencing her death, which is rehashed in this episode in a touching manner. However, the writers missed an opportunity to demonstrate why one’s emotional wounds don’t excuse mistreating other people.
The big elephant in the room is also the big ship in the room. No, 9-1-1 hasn’t gotten to the shipwreck yet, but it’s perfectly laid the breadcrumbs for it. This is a multi-part premiere after all, and this is a game 9-1-1 has played before. The series lures people in with the prospect of a life-changing disaster, only to not feature it in the second episode. The same was done for Season 3’s tsunami saga, which is one of the series’ highest-rated storylines. To play devil’s advocate, 9-1-1 knows how to tease a story to its own advantage. The premiere’s opening scene ingeniously shows the end of the shipwreck, only to snap back to the beginning. And with so much going on with the 118’s messy personal lives and Athena’s murder mystery case on the cruise, the shipwreck is hardly a pressing concern.
There’s An Athena Problem — But Not In A Bad Way
9-1-1 Finally Gives Athena A Proper Conflict Outside Of Crime
