Music City heats up in the premiere of new spinoff 9-1-1 Nashville
The world of 9-1-1 is expanding with a new spinoff that follows Music City’s emergencies from dispatch to the scene, with 9-1-1: Nashville following first responders as they attend to urgent crises that could only happen in a place like Nashville.
As the network synopsis declares, the series is “a high-octane procedural about heroic first responders, as well as their family saga of power and glamour set in one of America’s most diverse and dynamic cities.”
The cast includes some real Nashville luminaries, with Grammy-winning country artist LeAnn Rimes playing Dixie Bennings, a mother of one of the firefighters. Former Nashville star Kimberly Williams-Paisley — who, in real life, lives in Music City with her husband, country star Brad Paisley, and their sons — plays Cammie Raleigh, the dispatch call centre operator.
Guest starring in the premiere is country singer Kane Brown, who’s held down co-hosting duties for four successive CMT Music Awards, and made a splash in his first dramatic TV performance when he appeared in an episode of the CBS drama Fire Country. According to a press release, Brown “proves heroic in a major storyline” in the season premiere, with a scene set at a concert.
Filling out the main cast are Chris O’Donnell (NCIS: Los Angeles) as fire captain and rodeo rider Don Hart; Jessica Capshaw (Grey’s Anatomy) as Blythe Hart, Don’s wife; Hailey Kilgore (Power Book III: Raising Kanan) as firefighter and singer Taylor Thompson; Michael Provost (The Holdovers) as firefighter and cowboy Ryan Hart; Juani Feliz (Harlem) as firefighter and former surgeon Roxie Alba; and newcomer Hunter McVey as bad-boy firefighter Blue Bennings, Dixie’s son.
Recurring cast includes Gregory Alan Williams (The Righteous Gemstones) as Harold Foster, MacKenzie Porter (The Runarounds) as Samantha Hart and Tim Matheson (Virgin River) as Edward.
Speaking with TV Insider, showrunner Rashad Raisani explained that while “its DNA, of course, is 9-1-1,” he’s taking a soapier approach than the other 9-1-1 shows. “There’s some Succession . . . and some Dynasty slipped in there,” he said. “The show begins with an explosive revelation that affects the central dynamic of a character’s world. And then we shamelessly use tornadoes to great effect as a metaphor for the storm that has come into these characters’ lives.”
At the heart of the series is the relationship between Don and Blythe, who come from two very different backgrounds. “She comes from money, but there was a fire at her ranch, and she fell for this blue-collar firefighter,” Raisani explained.
“I’m sure I wasn’t her parents’ first pick,” quipped O’Donnell, noting that Don “straddles being a firefighter and then also being in this very high-end, well-known family here in Nashville.”
Meanwhile, Raisani confirmed that Rimes’ character is a “rival” to Blythe. As he recounted, Dixie is a former backup singer “who always felt like she deserved more than she got. As our series starts, she’s going to try and take what’s hers.”
Is Don what she plans to take? O’Donnell won’t say one way or the other, but he did offer an intriguing response. “Dixie comes from the same place” as his character. “They got to know each other when they were a lot younger.”
Beyond those soap-opera shenanigans, Raisani was also insistent that 9-1-1: Nashville will feature more than enough of the over-the-top disasters that have characterized its predecessors. “We have an Airstream trailer that ends up on top of a bridge and a poor guy on a Segway tour of the city who ends up impaled on a water tower,” Raisani added, revealing he’s also been able to film a crisis in a water park that he first envisioned when working on Lone Star. “We’re going to get a bunch of crazy emergencies where people end up in places where they shouldn’t be,” he shared.
The series premiere of 9-1-1: Nashville airs Thursday, October 9, on CTV & ABC