‘9-1-1’ Stars Angela Bassett, Jennifer Love Hewitt Can’t Believe ‘Insane’ 100th Episode
In the first season of “9-1-1,” Angela Bassett responded to calls about tanning bed burns and a seven-foot-long tapeworm.
Six years later, those seem like small things compared to the more recent disasters faced by police sergeant Athena Nash, who weathered earthquakes, mudslides and tsunamis throughout the long-running drama, which moved from Fox to ABC for Season 7. Looking back, “it feels so calming and exciting,” Bassett said with a laugh, sitting on a set between takes last month. “Some of those scenes are huge now. It’s exciting.”
Co-created by Ryan Murphy, the hit “9-1-1” was renewed Tuesday for an eighth season. The show celebrates its 100th episode Thursday (8 p.m. EDT/PDT) in a crossover event with ABC’s dating competition “The Bachelor.” The episode, titled “Buck Bothered and Bewildered,” features the newest bachelor Joey Graziadei, and features the fire department responding to an emergency call from the iconic Bachelor Mansion.
Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays 911 operator Maddie Buckley, is a big fan of “Bachelor” and pitched the idea to the show’s writers. That’s not unusual for the actress, who loves to help come up with storylines.
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“I give too much away,” Hewitt said. “I was like, ‘Hey, I have a proposition for you,’ and they were like, ‘Really? Again? Aren’t you tired?’” The cast and creative team of “9-1-1” marked the episode’s milestone last month with a cake-cutting ceremony on set. “It was really fun,” recalled Hewitt, who swapped stories with his co-star, Peter Krause, about their other television centennials. (Krause’s “Parenthood” aired on NBC after running for more than 100 episodes in 2015, while Hewitt’s Fox series “Party of Five” and CBS’ “Ghost Whisperer” have both passed the milestone.) “It made me feel really old, because people don’t get to 100 episodes on a show these days,” Hewitt said. “So when I did it three times, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy.’” The seven-season run has gone by quickly for Bassett, who won an honorary Oscar in January. “I don’t feel like I’m close to 100,” she said. “But I still love it and I still love it.”
Oliver Stark, who plays Maddie’s firefighter brother Evan “Buck” Buckley, marvels at how “9-1-1” continues to up the ante each year, opening Season 7 with a “Poseidon Adventure”-style cruise ship disaster.
“It doesn’t really feel like we’re doing network television. It feels like we’re doing a big blockbuster,” Stark said. “Every season when I read the script, I’m like, ‘There’s no way we can go any further.’” And then you read them and you’re like, ‘Okay, but how are we going to do this?’” Ultimately, this ensemble drama works because “even as the scene develops, the relationships between the characters deepen,” he adds. “You get to know them on a more intimate level through the scene.”
