REVIEW: ‘9-1-1’ Season 9 Should Have Stayed In Space

Do you remember that 9-1-1 Season 9 promo that went viral? The 118 and Jennifer Love Hewitt all spread out in different locations, dramatically looking up at the sky as meteors fell from it, while “Ordinary” by Alex Warren played. And it got laughed at by hundreds and thousands of people? Turns out, when 9-1-1 went to space, they wrote the best part of their season in what ends up being one of the worst seasons of 9-1-1. But the space episodes are an indicator that 9-1-1 remembers what it can do. If only they kept the momentum for the rest of the season.

It’s been said so many times at this point, but sending Athena (Angela Bassett) into space immediately about the death of Bobby is such a good idea. The concept of someone’s own grief being so big that Earth can’t contain it is such a beautifully tragic look into the grieving process. Yes, firefighters in space is such a wildly ridiculous idea. It could be seen as a jump-the-shark moment, but 9-1-1 literally jumped the shark seasons ago when they had a shark on a highway.

But the opening space episodes for 9-1-1 Season 9 prove that the premise can be as big and silly as it wants, as long as the emotions ring true. Framing the episodes around the idea of an “everyday hero” speaks to the sacrifices of first responders and, on another level, to Bobby’s sacrifice.

Kenneth Choi is never allowed to drive the plot the way Peter Krause did. 

The episodes do a great job of not hammering home Bobby’s name so much that he overtakes the story. But he’s there enough in both the unspoken and spoken moments. Athena’s grief sometimes isn’t even about Bobby, but about how to keep going when one’s life has seen so much tragedy, and now you no longer have a person to face it with. It’s about Athena’s past, present, and future, and the moments she thought about giving up but didn’t, because something else always came along. It’s a great setup for Athena for the rest of the season, and the finale tries to tie it back to this idea, but it falls a little flat.

The biggest hurdle 9-1-1 Season 9 needed to clear was filling Bobby’s shoes. Not just filling his shoes, but making space to truly define what a fire captain is, especially now that there’s a new captain for the first time in the entirety of the show. But it never does. The season tiptoes around Chimney’s (Kenneth Choi) feelings about being captain. The best drama comes when he fires Hen for hiding her illness and still going out into the field. But the struggle to overcome the jump from colleague to boss is never consistently woven through the season.

Part of the problem here is that Chimney might have taken over Bobby’s role as captain, but Kenneth Choi did not take over Peter Krause’s lead role, and his character suffers for it. The fire captain should be the emotional center of the crew, but often, Chimney’s thoughts and POV either get undermined or dropped altogether, as it does in the finale when he’s worried about how to comfort his crew but never actually figures out how to do that once they get distracted by the active shooter situation.

9-1-1 Season 9 rushes through storylines. 

Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) also doesn’t get a whole lot to do, making the Hans’ one of the most underutilized families this season. Her two biggest storylines are the AI episode, which is better left unmentioned for how awful it was, and her promotion to floor manager of dispatch late in 9-1-1 Season 9.

This change for Maddie’s character, who has been a 911 operator for many seasons now, feels like an end-of-the-road move. Part of what makes 911 unique from other first-responder shows is its dispatch, and Maddie has been the emotional tissue binding all the storylines together as the voice on the other end of the line for years now. Taking her out of that spot feels like a huge loss, but we’ll see what 9-1-1 Season 10 will have to offer there.

9-1-1 Season 9 has many interesting ideas that just don’t get enough airtime to land any huge emotional weight. Hen’s space illness, the most significant story she had after going to space, has a nice build-up to it, but ultimately undercuts the seriousness of chronic illnesses, curing her just a few episodes after being diagnosed.

The writing doesn’t know what to do with pivotal characters such as Buck and Athena. 

Rushing important storylines is a theme throughout 9-1-1 Season 9. Buck’s (Oliver Stark) story is all over the place this season. He’s grieving Bobby, then he’s dating around for an episode, and then he’s joining a knitting group, then he’s kidnapped, then he has an addiction, then he fosters his own biological kid.

Those last two, happening only a few episodes apart, are the most egregious examples of the season’s pacing issues. None of what Buck goes through is uninteresting; it’s just poorly executed, which makes it hard to take seriously. And on a show that went to space this season, that’s saying something.

As for Athena, 9-1-1 Season 9 doesn’t really know what to do with her after the space episodes. It’s a season of grieving, Bobby, and there are moments that speak to that ongoing grief, like Athena’s reluctance to Harry (Elijah M. Cooper) joining the fire academy and then working for the 118. Other than that, her stories come at an episodic pace. They’re all mostly interesting, if not exactly memorable, like others in the past. But by the time the finale rolls around, there hasn’t really been a forward path laid out for her yet, making her decision to finally become a detective, the emotional breakthrough of the 9-1-1 Season 9 finale, really random.

Harry, Ravi, and May breathe new life into 9-1-1 Season 9. 

If anything saves 9-1-1 Season 9, it’s Harry, Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody), and May (Corinne Massiah). Over the seasons, the 118 has felt very insular. The show’s unchanging character dynamics are responsible for how stale it’s become. But with May, Harry, and Ravi getting more screen time this season, the show gives itself breathing room to explore new dynamics and inject some life into itself.

Harry’s path to the 118 is one of the more well-plotted aspects of this season. It’s not perfect, with some parts of it rushed, like his employment at the 118. But it has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and positions Harry as a new main character whose story is just beginning. His interactions with Buck as his mentor give Buck a new dynamic to work with, and follow on as a great way to showcase all the things Buck learned from Bobby.

While May’s story in 9-1-1 Season 9 was slow to come together, it finally picked up speed midseason when she helped the 118 get ready for a bachelor’s auction, leading to her eventual romance with Ravi. The May and Ravi relationship was such a nice surprise this season and helped revive the relationship drama that was lacking in other areas.

9-1-1 Season 10 should take the chance to explore Ravi’s character even more. 

It also gave Harry and Ravi prime A story status in a couple of episodes, while the 118 took the B story. This kind of integration of other characters is something the show’s been needing for a while, and it works really well with Harry and Ravi.

But it wasn’t just relationship drama with May. Now that May is done with college, it’s time for her to enter the workforce. We’ve previously seen her as a 911 operator, but this time, her pursuit of a law degree leads her to switch to a nursing degree. An apt fit when considering how fast she pulled together that makeshift triage during the space episodes. She ends 9-1-1 Season 9 already doing her first rounds. For Season 10, we could be seeing more of the hospital beyond another 118-member death.

Out of the three, Ravi still has the least to do, even though he’s dating May now. 9-1-1 Season 9 saw a record number of episodes for Ravi, with only one or two missed. Yet, he still mostly plays a supporting role. His interactions with Harry and May gave him the best material he’s had since the early seasons he was around. But there’s still much more to explore with him, and 9-1-1 Season 10 should take that opportunity.

Following the return to Earth, 9-1-1 Season 9 struggles to deliver consistently interesting storylines.

For the mains, Eddie (Ryan Guzman) probably has the most improvement in terms of forward momentum in 9-1-1 Season 9. It’s a low bar to clear considering what they had him doing the past couple of seasons, but here, he has much more to do. His three main storylines involve finding religion again as a way to process his grief, a midseason multiple-episode arc in which he helps a traumatized teenager, and, in the last few episodes, assisting migrant workers in gaining asylum in the country. Not bad, honestly.

It’s not just the big storylines that seem like Eddie is finally getting again, but he feels more present even in the more mundane 118 call scenes. He takes over Chimney’s spot as Hen’s paramedic partner, so he’s constantly doing something on all the calls, whether that’s delivering a baby or taking vitals; he’s at the forefront of all the scenes.

9-1-1 Season 9 was at its best when it went to space. Unfortunately, it crashed back to Earth and never recovered enough to create an interesting season of television. It was a season that lacked cohesion and follow-through for characters that have become stale. There have been a few bright spots, but bright spots are a rare breed when it comes to 9-1-1 these days.

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 18 is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. You can catch the full season now.