The flambé version of a hundred other entrees on the TV menu, the CBS dramatic series “Fire Country” numbers among its executive producers the prolific Jerry Bruckheimer, which may inspire the fear that one day soon there will be a “Fire Country: Miami,” “Fire Country: Vegas” and “Fire Country: NY.” This presumes that the show catches fire with audiences. But with California perpetually ablaze and penal labor a red-hot issue, a show built around inmates fighting wildfires seems like something that could smolder for years.
At the same time, a show like “Fire Country,” which stars Max Thieriot as the incarcerated Bode Donovan, is a symptom of what’s out of sync between traditional network TV and a growing segment of the small-screen-viewing world. Taking up an hour of air time each week, the show has to conform to the traditional dictates—i.e. accommodating commercials—and is thus structured in a manner that can’t follow a natural dramatic course. Or create characters who aren’t clichés. Or present human dynamics we haven’t seen before. Which is why producers such as Mr. Bruckheimer—the megawatt version of a thousand lesser lights—look for new places and unique environments in which to mount their shows, rather than trying to tell new stories.
Take the prodigal Bode, the rugged, handsome, perpetual outsider whom we meet in front of the California state parole board, whose members are hearing his latest request for release, replete with apologies to both the state and the victim of an armed robbery he committed two years earlier; remorse is a surefire route to sympathy and Bode wins ours, if not the board’s. In lieu of outright freedom, his lawyer suggests, Bode might volunteer to fight fires with the elite Cal Fire program, and Bode does, expecting to do some good and win early release. To his dismay, he’s placed with a fire company in Edgewater, his old hometown, the site of many misdeeds, the place where romance will be rekindled, or kindled, and where he has to confront all the demons and emotional turmoil he’s been running from for years.
