Stream It Or Skip It: ‘9-1-1’, Ryan Murphy’s Star-Studded Attempt At A Network Procedural

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have shown us their quirky takes on everything from plastic surgery to high school show choirs to covens and cults. But what if they took their worldview and made a straight-up cops-and-firefighters procedural? That’s the idea behind 9-1-1 on Fox. Can the pair revolutionize the format?

9-1-1: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An overview shot of a city intersection, and a signature Murphy voiceover saying “What’s your emergency?” We go on to see Abby Clark (Connie Britton) describe her personal “emergency”: 43, still not over a break-up, taking care of her mother (Mariette Hartley), who has late stage Alzheimers.

The Gist: Abby then goes on to describe the “other” type of emergency, which she deals with every day as a 911 dispatcher for the city of Los Angeles. The job is her passion, because she feels that she can help people from her high-tech workstation, with satellite views of the city and the ability to pinpoint calls at a keystroke. Calls of all sorts come in, from true emergencies to people who didn’t get their chicken nuggets in the drive-thru. The only bad part of her job is that, as soon as the first responders arrive, the caller hangs up, and she has no idea how things turned out.

Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) is one of the paramedic firefighters that are among the first responders. We see him and his team save a kid from drowning then unsuccessfully talk a jumper down. He goes to confession every week to keep him on the straight and narrow while he’s in recovery from a drug and alcohol problem.

Then, a call comes in: some stoner thinks he heard a baby cry inside the wall of his bathroom. The firefighters come first, thinking it’s a bit of a joke, but Nash tries to keep them focused. While they caefully see if a premature baby was flushed down a toilet, LAPD arrives, with Athena Grant (Angela Bassett) following a blood trail to the young mom who flushed the baby out of fear. Her life is in a bit of disarray, as her husband and father of her kids (Rockmond Dunbar) comes out, leading Athena to think he lied to her for the length of their marraige.

Then, another call, then another. We see Nash fire, then rehire brash young firefighter Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark), who can’t stop using the fire engine for sexual encounters. But we also see him save the day when Athena calls the fire department in to distract a couple of home invaders and save a little girl.

Our Take: What is there to say about 9-1-1 besides the fact that it has three of our favorite actors in it? The pilot basically is a rehash of everything we’ve seen in procedurals from Adam-12 and Emergency! to Chicago Med/PD/Fire, with some Murphy signatures thrown in to make it seem edgy. A little more sex, a bit more of everyone’s personal lives, and the added measure of seeing the 911 dispatcher side of the operation separates this show a little bit, but not enough to be memorable.

Of course, we love Krause, Britton and Bassett. Angela Bassett could stand on a stage and read Yelp reviews and give you an emotional gut punch. Krause does his usual job of being square-jawed and by the rules while displaying turmoil underneath. And Connie Britton takes the strands of material she gets in the pilot and applies her usual vulnerable-but-strong persona to it.

But watching the pilot brought up this question: While Bassett’s and Krause’s roles have some dramatic meat to them, we wonder why Britton agreed to play a role that essentially consists of her reacting into a fake headset and staring at fake computer screens. Yes, there are the scenes with Hartley (who we haven’t seen on TV in ages) as her mom, and there will likely be more to that. But the nature of her character’s job means that most of her scenes will be behind a desk, interacting with her co-stars by phone instead of in person. We know Britton’s capable of so much more, and we’re shocked Murphy sold her on this role.

Sex and Skin: Buck and a rando have sex in a ladder truck. Yeesh.

Parting Shot: Over the strains of Queen’s “Under Pressure” (a bit on the nose, eh?), we see the three stars stare into middle distance as they contemplate their messy personal lives but oh-so-fulfilling jobs. We end with Abby behind her desk saying “911. What’s your emergency?”

Sleeper Star: Kenneth Choi as Howie “Chimney” Han looks like he’ll be pretty decent comic relief, as he likes to talk about finding dates on a first responders dating site and generally crack self-deprecating jokes. And we hope we see more of Aisha Hinds as Henrietta “Hen” Wilson, the fire squad’s voice of reason.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I was a punk. I still am one. But I’m a punk who understands what he lost.” Buck to Nash after the home invasion call, telling his boss that he now understands why he got fired.

Our Call: SKIP IT. As much as we love watching the three leads, this show feels like a dressed-up version of something we’ve seen a million times before. Even if we dive more into the personal lives of the leads as the show goes forward, the procedural aspect will always be the biggest part of the show, and that’s the part we least want to see.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch 9-1-1 on Hulu