9-1-1

A fast paced, action packed show with a great cast, this new show has a lot of potential.

The show’s impressive, all-star cast makes all the difference here. At least in the pilot, the actors elevate the premise from a suspenseful, action show to an engrossing drama, while the influence of seasoned veterans Murphy and Falchuck lends 9-1-1 the gravitas it needs to rise above TV’s cabal of conflicted police officers and harried paramedics.

This is adrenaline-rush TV. It’s instantly compelling, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and a pretty solid way to start 2018.

A surprisingly engaging procedural drama. 9-1-1 brings to mind early “ER.”

Ultimately, 9-1-1 may be a too-predictable and unremitting show, but when it takes off, it's quite the ride.

The content is no more or less heightened or graphic than you've seen in dozens of procedurals, the resolutions no more or less creative, the characters no more or less nuanced. The nuances are perfunctory, but they're there, and you can see how the combination of decent characters, a somewhat relaxed ensemble work schedule, a straight-to-series order and Ryan Murphy on the phone would get the big names to express curiosity.

This show hums when focused on the incidents and accidents that force people to call for help but falters when it then tries to take us into the personal lives of the responders.

9-1-1 mainly feels like a professional attempt by eccentric creators to draft their own down-the-middle network series. There are pleasures in any form, and I’ve come to enjoy how so many network pilots contain dialogue that sounds like character summaries from casting calls.

Far more formulaic than you’d expect from Executive Producer Ryan Murphy, 9-1-1 sparks to life when it’s dealing with the oddest cases.

Serviceable yet unremarkable. ... 9-1-1 is a match for the overall quality of NBC’s Chicago trifecta. None of race-to-the-rescue, life-and-death dramas are anywhere near Emmy caliber. But if there’s room for one more -- and quite likely there is -- then Fox certainly could do worse than a comparatively blood-less but decently executed series from a producer who still hits more than he misses.

The pilot episode comprises several emergencies, all of which are written and directed as nail-biters. In between, we begin to learn a little about some of the main characters. Nothing that would distinguish them from other characters in similar procedurals, but even if 9-1-1 is a departure from racier Murphy-Falchuk fare, it maintains high production values, solid performances and engaging scripts.

The result, 9-1-1, a drama centering around the first responders to emergencies, is as outrageous as you’d expect from a Murphy production: Babies flushed down toilets! Snakes getting beheaded! Connie Britton with bad hair! But it’s also depressingly derivative and middle-of-the-road.

9-1-1, an engaging but surprisingly rote drama from hitmaker Murphy and co-creators Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear.

The cases are fine for the genre, and 9-1-1 seems like an acceptable time-passer for procedural fans. From Ryan Murphy, though, that qualifies as an anomaly.

9-1-1 is insufferable, but it’s also watchable.

As long as these first responders are on the job, careening from one wild crisis to another 9-1-1 has the making of a hit. ... It's when we go off duty with these heroes, played by one of TV's most ridiculously overqualified casts that the show flatlines with maudlin subplots that might have been rejected by General Hospital. [25 Dec 2017 - 7 Jan 2018, p.15]

Murphy has done great, daring work elsewhere, and that’s why actors will follow him anywhere. But 9-1-1 is neither great, nor daring--and these actors deserve far, far better.

The emphasis on snap over story trips up the pilot. There’s a surprising lack of narrative coherence from the beginning of the hour to the end; two major emergencies and several minor ones are scattered through the episode with no real connection to one another. Only young firefighter Buck has an arc.

There are a lot of problems with 9-1-1, including stunted dialogue, painful voiceover, and at least one willing embodiment of “all things wrong with millennials,” but the emergency stories are what push the pilot from engaging melodrama to laughable inanity.