9-1-1 Fans Don’t Give This Underrated Season the Credit It Deserves

Few prime-time shows are as interesting as 9-1-1. The former Fox drama truly has something for everyone. There’s action, romance, and suspense. Its diverse cast is filled with lovable personalities, and even the darkest moments are tinged with a sense of brightness. The beloved 118 quickly gained a following, and its fanbase has only expanded since its 2018 debut. Unfortunately, many fans often skip the first season. It is, in all honesty, a somewhat understandable choice.

For most shows, that first season is little more than a test phase. It’s an awkward adolescent slog, wherein the show tries its best to find its footing and establish its formula. It’s an essential time for many procedurals, but rarely a smash hit. Skipping 9-1-1’s inaugural season, however, is a big mistake — and it’s not for some sort of large-scale, plot-related payoff, either. 9-1-1’s debut is, simply, a gem of prime-time television. It’s more than just an awkward serial fledgling. While it sometimes feels like a completely different show, this initial batch of episodes is jam-packed with all the things that make the show great.

9-1-1 Season 1 Lacks the Richness of the Later Seasons But It's Still Great

9-1-1 Season 1 Has a Slightly Different Cast

• Angela Bassett has won two Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series awards from the NAACP.
• Bassett, Britton, and Krause were the show’s first confirmed cast members.
• The inaugural season won the 2018 Location Team of the Year prize at the California on Location Awards.

9-1-1’s first season is the beginning of its iconic journey, and its characters have yet to experience their most formative moments. As an introductory series, it also lacks some of the “meat” that keeps other seasons so tightly connected. These facts aren’t the source of the season’s woes. They’re certainly valid criticisms of 9-1-1’s debut, but the season’s relative obscurity is ultimately tied to its cast. That’s an odd thing to say, especially considering the show’s core cast has remained essentially unchanged for eight seasons, but it’s true. 9-1-1’s first season is unfairly kneecapped by two glaring casting differences.

Perhaps the most obvious of these omissions is apparent in the first few minutes of the first episode. After that iconic ringtone, it’s not Jennifer Love Hewitt picking up the phone. The first season of 9-1-1 doesn’t even include Maddie. Instead, its framing depends on the emergency line operator, Abigail “Abby” Clark (Connie Britton). Notably, Abby does not begin as a loner. She lives with her dementia-stricken mother (Mariette Hartley) and often interacts with the day nurse, Carla Price (Cocoa Brown).

The second crucial exclusion may be the ten-episode lineup’s thorniest sticking point. Firefighter Edmundo “Eddie” Diaz (Ryan Guzman) is not part of the 118’s initial lineup. There’s no real “replacement” for him, either. When 9-1-1 begins, fan-favorite Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark) is filling the lowly probie spot. The freshly-recruited firefighter boasts a more naïve outlook and playboy attitude. By extension, the cast lacks some bonds that current fans adore.

The love story between Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) and Athena Grant (Angela Bassett) is just beginning to bloom at the end of the first season. Logically, Maddie’s absence also takes her crowd-pleasing romance with Howard “Chimney” Han (Kenneth Choi) off the table. Even Henrietta “Hen” Wilson (Aisha Hinds) faces issues with her marriage to Karen (Tracie Thoms). Everyone — even the 118’s beloved captain — is still a relative greenhorn. They’ve yet to experience the turbulence that defines their later arcs, so they’re all just a bit different.

Why is 9-1-1 Season 1 Required Viewing for Fans?

Fans Should Not Skip 9-1-1 Season 1

• 9-1-1 has been syndicated by two networks: USA earned its rights in 2022, and WeTV began airing the show in 2023.
• Oliver Stark had considered quitting acting and becoming a real firefighter before earning a spot on 9-1-1.
• The show’s second spin-off, 9-1-1: Nashville, will debut during the 2025–2026 season on ABC.

9-1-1’s debut has all the same light campiness as its later iterations. It’s the same show, after all. The core philosophies haven’t changed. Season 1 has a slightly darker tone than its successors. Everything is just a touch more serious, and Patricia Clark’s dementia is just part of the equation. Without their later character arcs, each character begins as a blank slate. There’s a sense of adventure and experimentation that later seasons understandably lack.

Hen and Karen’s bickering casts a dramatic pallor over the usually upbeat paramedic. There are many tiny tonal differences, but the most impactful is each emergency’s scale. Each call is still a life-or-death emergency, but the untested show had a much smaller budget in its first season. There are no massive structural fires or nuclear meltdowns. Instead, the show’s lighter moments are juxtaposed against more grounded conundrums. Yes, that means the first season isn’t as visually spectacular.

There are no tottering train wrecks or tsunamis plaguing the team. But that same sense of small-scale realism also makes each case more personal. Each victim gets time to really burrow into the audience’s hearts, making every rescue more impactful. In a more literal sense, the team also grapples with emergencies in their own bubbles. While Season 8’s May Grant (Corrine Massiah) is a 911 dispatcher, the show’s debut highlights her turbulent adolescence.

Bobby has yet to fully come to terms with his past. Everyone is messy; everyone is flawed. These facts undoubtedly dominate later seasons, but they are increasingly easy to miss beneath the show’s pursuit of “bigger and better” emergencies. To be clear, none of this is an indictment of the show’s current form. Even now, seven seasons later, 9-1-1 has retained most of that debut charm. While its characters have only grown more wholesome, the story more epic, there are still some missing pieces.

That sense of grounded, everyday danger is often lost beneath newer episodes’ grand ambitions. Small moments of downtime now seem rarer, and character breakthroughs are less delightfully subdued. Bigger isn’t always better, and it sometimes feels like 9-1-1 has forgotten its core. Its first season, though not perfect, avoids many of these late-game conundrums. It understands its place and knows when to ease up on the gas. That hectic “always on” attitude is fun, sure, but it’s also muddling the show’s heartfelt stories.

Fans Get to Enjoy More Time With the 118

9-1-1 Will Return for a 9th Season

• It took just two episodes for Fox to renew the series for its second season.
• The show’s first and seventh seasons are its shortest, including just ten episodes each.

Perhaps the greatest and most obvious example of this identity crisis is 9-1-1’s latest and most controversial decision. Narratively, killing everyone’s “Station Dad,” Bobby Nash, makes sense. It’s a fitting end for a selfless man, albeit hotly debated. However, the show’s increasingly frenetic tone only muddied the blow with oddball twists and messy plot holes. While watching the first season of 9-1-1 won’t fix what may be Tim Minear’s most baffling decision to date, it may help heal some sore wounds.

Bobby may not be as wholesome and cheerful as he is in later seasons, but he’s still the station’s rock. His shaky debut perfectly encapsulates the show’s character-centric storytelling. 9-1-1 Season 1 also offers fans ten more episodes to enjoy Peter Krause’s impeccable acting. It may not be identical to the show fans know and love, but the first season of this firefighting procedural showcases its team at their collective best. Everyone has time to shine, and everyone matters.

Each victim is part of the show’s high-stakes tapestry. There’s a sense of thoughtfulness and planning that has grown thinner over each subsequent season, but those same qualities made the show shine. Yes, there’s no “Buddie” in Season 1. It just wasn’t part of the show’s plan, and that’s okay. It’s still a critical part of the 118’s story, and its ten episodes are some of the show’s best.