‘9-1-1’ & ‘Lone Star’ Boss on 2022 Crossovers, Scheduling & Timelines

When 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star return for the 2021-2022 season for their fifth and third seasons, respectively, they won’t be airing back-to-back on Monday nights again — at first. And Tim Minear, who serves as showrunner for both, admits that makes it a bit easier.

“Just to be selfish for a moment, it’s been really hard for me to do two of these every week. The idea that Lone Star is going to come back in January after the first 10 episodes of 9-1-1, air for 10 episodes, and then for the last eight, they’ll both air on the same night, back to back again, allows me to not be quite stretched quite so thin,” he tells TV Insider.

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However, that does mean that over at Lone Star, they have to figure out whether or not to do a time jump and miss out on things like Grace’s (Sierra McClain) pregnancy. “I don’t want to just come back and necessarily have missed it all,” he continues. “We’re still sort of figuring out just logistically how much of that we’re going to see.”

Minear also notes that both shows do play around with time a lot. “For instance, at the end of Episode 8 of Lone Star this year — where the paramedics got kidnapped — we see Judd [Jim Parrack] and Grace going off a bridge. As you’re watching that episode, it feels like maybe it’s happening that night that T.K. [Ronen Rubinstein] is in the hospital, but really it’s not. It’s a teaser to the episode when we come back after the break, the whole backstory of Judd and Grace,” he says. “We do it on both 9-1-1 and Lone Star where we’ll show something like an earthquake and then we’ll rewind to the day before and get back to that moment.”

By the time the shows are airing back-to-back again, they “need to be on the same timeline because I do think that there is probably in a crossover in the future there,” he explains. And yes, “at the moment,” the plan is for a major, two-part event like they couldn’t do this season. Instead, Hen (Aisha Hinds), Buck (Oliver Stark), and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) of 9-1-1 headed down to Texas to help the 126 with a wildfire in a Lone Star episode.

Jordin Althaus/FOX

Will this next crossover take place in both locations or just one? “It’s too soon to answer that,” Minear says. He is, however, “looking forward to seeing other characters get to cross paths” because “those different combinations are very exciting,” as we saw this season.

Minear also hasn’t ruled out a smaller crossover, like a member of the 126 visiting L.A. or Eddie heading home to Texas. “That could happen,” he says. “I don’t close the door on anything. Ask my writing staff. I’ll change my mind three seconds before we start shooting.”

9-1-1, Season 5, Fall 2021, Fox

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 3, January 2022, Fox