Did ‘9-1-1’s Move to ABC Change Anything About the Show?

Oliver Stark as Evan 'Buck' Buckley, Jennifer Love Hewitt as Maddie Kendall, Kenneth Choi as Howie 'Chimney' Han, Angela Bassett as Athena Grant, Peter Krause as Bobby Nash, Aisha Hinds as Henrietta 'Hen' Wilson, Gavin McHugh as Christopher Diaz, and Ryan Guzman as Eddie Diaz — '9-1-1' Season 7
Disney/Justin Stephens

9-1-1 may be moving networks — and nights! — but does that mean that there will be anything significantly different about the show itself when Season 7 premieres on ABC on March 14? The answer is no — at least, not in terms of the content.

It still has the big disasters. In fact, this season kicks off with a three-episode cruise ship emergency, with Athena (Angela Bassett) and Bobby (Peter Krause) at the center of it, (finally) on their honeymoon. It also has intense character stories, and Oliver Stark (who plays Buck) agreed it’ll be fully familiar to fans when TV Insider talked to him about just that.

“The day-to-day of the show feels very much the same. I think the only thing that feels different, I would say, is just the level of freshness and excitement and it feeling like the rightful home for it and that being felt in the cast and the crew and the creators,” he shared. “And yeah, I think there’s just an overall feeling of being settled in our rightful home and being excited about it.”

That “home” is now ABC, after its first six seasons aired on Fox. And while it will still be airing at 8/7c, it will now be on Thursdays, not Mondays. Episodes will still be available on Hulu the next day.

Soon after the season kicks off, the first responder drama will be celebrating its 100th episode, “off the back of this huge cruise ship disaster, so it’s everybody coming back together and a number of different characters have really meaningful storylines in the episode,” Stark previewed. “Obviously, there are emergencies, but it also leans very heavily on character. At this point, we’ll have spent 100 episodes with these characters. It’s nice to let them be and just look at their lives and explore where they are a little bit as we look back and think about all we’ve done and all that culminating.”

And for Stark, “when [the] emergencies do reflect things going on in the characters’ lives, that’s when the show is really thriving.” With it continuing to do just that, chances are fans won’t notice anything different after the network hop.

9-1-1, Season 7 Premiere, Thursday, March 14, 8/7c, ABC