Fire Country’s Max Theriot and Sheriff Country’s Morena Baccarin share the secrets behind their hit series
First came Fire Country, following the exploits of ex-convict Bode Donovan (Max Thieriot), who seeks redemption for his troubled past by joining a prison-release firefighting program in his Northern California hometown of Edgewater, where he works with a team of elite firefighters to battle blazes. Then came Sheriff Country, focusing on Edgewater’s Sheriff Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin), a straight-shooting crimefighter who investigates local crimes while managing a complicated personal life.
With both shows ending their seasons this week (the fourth for Fire Country, the first for its spinoff), CBS is already hard at work developing another potential entry into the franchise, which would focus on an Edgewater medical team (the title Med Country is already being thrown around).
“I think Max and I are going to start a little Sleep Country pretty soon,” says Baccarin, joking about long days on the set of both series, particularly when shooting a two-part crossover episode that aired in April. “We’ve been talking about Vacation Country for a while,” adds Thieriot before jokingly suggesting another spinoff: Wine Country. “Wine Country, I’m in!” jokes Baccarin.
The fact that both shows have become successful enough to warrant another potential spinoff speaks to how much viewers have connected with the characters. According to Baccarin, it all boils down to one word: family. “It originates with that, and strong emotional arcs, and people’s connectivity to each other, whether it’s firefighters or, you know, sheriffs, or cops or whatever it is. We’re all relating to each other as a family,” she says, while also pointing to the procedural elements that are an integral part of both shows. “It’s like the excitement of solving the crime, of putting out the fire, of dealing with whatever we’re dealing with, plus the emotional arcs that connects these characters.”
Airing in early April, the two-part crossover centred on a school bus explosion, bringing together the respective teams on both shows. As Thieriot points out, those episodes were a labour of love for everyone involved. “Obviously, it was a huge amount of work for all the actors and the crew to pull off,” he says. “Like, that doesn’t fall short, I think, on anybody. But I can say that the finished product is pretty amazing.”
Both shows lean heavily into action, and nowhere was that more true than a recent Sheriff Country episode that saw Mickey and her officers under siege when the Barlow crime family attacked Edgewater station, resulting in a massive shoot-out.
“It took a lot of prep, actually,” Baccarin says of the vast amount of effort required for that episode. “The initial prep in the beginning of the season to figure out all of our guns and things. And then, this episode we had to brush up, because there were so many things I learned about other weapons: shotguns and flash grenades and whatnot. So, that was one component to it. And it was a very carefully choreographed staged area. We had to make sure that with every stunt and everything that we did we were progressing the story, because we had to tell a very consistent story of being under siege, running out of ammo and having no radio connectivity to the outside world. So, it was really about pinpointing those moments physically in action and then emotionally layering in, you know, at what point is the breaking point? . . . I had to be very specific of the emotional beats and moments and also physically knowing, ‘OK, this is the section where I have two shells left in my shotgun. Am I going to use it for this guy or that guy, and how am I going to get backup?’”
According to Baccarin, that ambitious action sequence took five solid days of shooting, requiring her to spend all that time “hunkered down behind desks and stuff in one spot, one position. My knees really took a beating on those five days.”
However, that’s a small price to pay for the spectacle that wound up on the screen. For Thieriot, that commitment is even more intense, given that he’s not only the star of Fire Country, but is also an executive producer on both shows. “I won’t lie, it ends up being a heck of a lot,” he admits. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way, you know? And honestly, we have such a great team over there and clearly it starts at the top. And Morena is an incredible leader and just an amazing partner onscreen for all of her co-stars, and I know the crew adores her. And so, I think that it really kind of starts there, right? I mean, people will bust their a** for you if you show them that you’re going to bust your a** and you’re going to be there every day and you care about them. And a big thing that I’ve always said from the beginning is people want to go to work and go home and be able to smile at the end of the day. And if you can do that, it just changes the whole tone and the work ethic, I think.”
Sheriff Country airs Fridays on Global & CBS