‘9-1-1,’ TV’s Wackiest Show, Is Getting Even More Bonkers

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [The logo for Daily Beast's Obsessed] Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon     This Week - The 9-1-1 cast previews an even [more bonkers season](. - Our unimpeachable [The Traitors]( casting ideas. - Beyoncé?! - The funniest play I’ve seen in years. - This week’s most important photo.     Give Me the New Season of 9-1-1 Now As much as I love so-called “prestige TV,” there is no programming more magical than when a broadcast drama series cannonballs into the waters of bonkers, batshit absurdity—and, somehow, makes you cry in the aftermath. ER and its event disasters set a bar for that—thank Dr. Romano’s unfortunate incident with a helicopter for a deep-seated fear of helicopters. [Grey’s Anatomy]( raised ER a helicopter crash with an airplane crash—and a ferry crash, and a car crash, and deer crash. But my beloved [9-1-1](—and its spinoff 9-1-1: Lonestar—have turned weekly episodes of network TV into full-on action films, each outing blissfully and unabashedly staging monumental set pieces that are as fantastically ludicrous as they are grounded in our greatest anxieties and emotions of “what could go wrong in life.” It was a treat, then, to have a front-row seat this week to 9-1-1’s cast and set while in Los Angeles this week for the Television Critics Association winter press conferences—even if it was hard to shake the unsettling feeling that, given the show, the soundstage’s roof was going to crash down on me, or my shuttle bus there was going to careen off a freeway exit. Co-creator Tim Minear appeared alongside cast members [Angela Bassett]( (can confirm that the human reaction is to reflexively gasp when she appears in front of you), Peter Krause (see previous parenthetical and replace “gasp” with “swoon”), and [Jennifer Love-Hewitt]( (ditto, but the involuntary belt out the chorus to her iconic 2002 pop hit “[BareNaked](”). Bassett charmed immediately. Asked whether anyone has treated her differently on set after she received an [honorary Academy Award]( last month, she quipped: “Not one damn bit, so I’m glad you brought that up.” 9-1-1 had me at hello; in this case, “hello” means “the episode where a bouncy castle blows off a cliff with a man and his stepson inside and the emergency responders must rescue them.” The series’s seventh season premieres Mar.14—and this season will also mark its 100th episode—but there will be one major change: In a rare move, the show is shifting networks, from Fox to ABC. 9-1-1: Lonestar, however, will remain on Fox. Thankfully, while speaking on the lawn of the house owned by Bassett and Krause’s characters, Minear and the cast confirmed that the network switch would not be accompanied by a scaling back of calamity. (The fleet of emergency vehicles we passed on the way to the set seemed to echo that assertion.) This is a franchise in which a woman has been hit by a meteor, a man nearly drowned in a vat of chocolate, and the Santa Monica Pier was wiped out by a tidal wave. And let us never forget [the episode of Lonestar]( in which Rob Lowe gave CPR to a man whose body temperature plummeted while in a cryotherapy machine and accidentally cracked his frozen chest while giving compressions.) For a seventh season—and 100 episodes—expectations are high for new stunts. “I have also discovered during this time that Tim Minear has aspired to be television’s Irwin Allen because we’ve done an earthquake, a tidal wave,” Krause told journalists, referring to the “Master of Disaster” filmmaker. “Now we’re doing The Poseidon Adventure.” “What's interesting is, the tsunami that took out the Santa Monica Pier was weirdly easier to produce than a capsized cruise ship,” Minear said. “We almost had a cruise ship. And then the cruise ship company was like, ‘We’ll let you use our cruise ship but nothing bad can happen.’ Like, have you seen the show? And they’re like, “Well, you can capsize it, blow a hole in it, sink it, as long as at the end we see it’s fine. And then they sail off.’ I’m like, no, we’re not going to do that.” Throughout its run, the show’s big sequences—like recreating The Poseidon Adventure—have gained a new audience among those who may not have been familiar with its FOX run, or maybe even heard of it at all. TikTok-ers have been posting clips of the show’s zaniest disaster moments, sans context, on the platform, the connotation of the posts being, “What in the hell is going on?” The irony is that the TikTok-ification of 9-1-1 echoes the source material that inspires the show. “We have a lot of viral moments, and what’s interesting is it’s kind of a snake eating its own tail,” Minear said. “We still to this day take a lot of inspiration from viral videos. In fact, we’re recreating another one for an episode we're shooting now, and there have been several on the show. I mean, even in the first year, there was a moment of a guy getting caught at a car wash, and that was a recreation of a viral video. So that was always my aesthetic with 9-1-1, to try to make it feel like you were going down a YouTube rabbit hole of viral videos.” Beyond re-staging The Poseidon Adventure, the 9-1-1 premiere will feature another sequence that’s inspired by a recent, real-life news story. “There is another great disaster in the first episode, which you may have read [about] that there was a jet fighter that got lost,” Minear said. “The fighter pilot had to bail out of the plane, and they sort of didn't know where the plane went.” Throughout the panel, the cast joked about the litany of catastrophes their characters suffered through. “I was killed and then brought back repeatedly,” said Kenneth Choi. “I think I got four wounds at this point from a gun,” Ryan Guzman added. Still, no matter how preposterous the show’s storylines may seem, reality is catching up to the lunacy. In Los Angeles last summer, there was an earthquake the same day as a tropical storm. This week, an apocalyptic “atmospheric river” dropped record amounts of rain on the city. (I haven’t a clue what an “atmospheric river” is, only to say that experiencing it was highly unpleasant.) With real-life seeming like an episode of the show, has Minear taken any inspiration? He laughed: “Just getting B-roll.”       Advertisement     We Made the Perfect The Traitors Cast “Excitement” is a foreign feeling for me these days. It seems so preposterous that I imagine it would be akin to what it’s like to fly, or to be on the moon. Well, Peacock built me a rocket ship and blasted me off this week, with the news that [The Traitors](, the greatest television series of our time, has been renewed for Season 3. Given the reality competition’s popularity, a renewal might have seemed inevitable. But look around at 2024, people! Nothing good should be thought of as certain. It’s a true gift to be able to continue to enjoy the [currently airing second season]( while fantasizing about the murder-plot machinations that could come in the next installment. So we’ve seized that opportunity: Here are The Daily Beast’s Obsessed’s biggest Traitors’ fans’ dream picks for the cast of Season 3.   Me: Clay Aiken (American Idol) Lance Bass (*NSYNC) Candiace Dillard Bassett (The Real Housewives of Potomac) Carl Radke (Summer House) Michelle Visage (RuPaul’s Drag Race) Eva Marcille (America’s Next Top Model/The Real Housewives of Atlanta) Captain Sandy (Below Deck) Dorit Kemsley (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) Danny Roberts (The Real World: New Orleans) Ted Allen (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy/Chopped) Laura Bradley: Flava Flav (Flavor of Love) Nick Viall (The Bachelor) Bobbi Althoff (The Really Good Podcast) Bianca Del Rio (RuPaul’s Drag Race) Helen Holmes: Bethenny Frankel (The Real Housewives of New York) Jax Taylor (Vanderpump Rules) Addison Rae (TikTok) Ice-T (Ice Loves Coco) Fletcher Peters Kelley Wentworth (Survivor) Phillip Sheppard (Survivor) Eddie Lucas (Below Deck) CJ Franco (Fboy Island) Everyone: Tiffany “New York” Pollard (Flavor of Love/I Love New York)     I Can’t Stop Laughing Do you ever see some internet-y thing—a meme, a photo, a tweet, a viral story—and it somehow sews itself into your brain so well that every once a while you just randomly think about it and start laughing? Not like a giggle. A full-on, silently heaving, tears-streaming-down-the-face laughing fit? For me, that used to be the legend of [Poot Lovato](. [Returns seven minutes later after the laughter has subsided.] But there’s a new entry in the canon: the [wax figure of Beyoncé]( that looks exactly like King of Queens star and heroic Scientology whistleblower Leah Remini. I first saw a few tweets about it, and then my colleagues were Slacking about it—all before I saw the actual photo of the wax figure. Maybe it was the lead-up to finally seeing the picture. Whatever it was, I couldn’t stop laughing, and have periodically had to pause my life over the last 24 hours each time the image surfaced again in my life and I couldn’t accomplish anything because I was laughing again. Behold: I think we’re all the iconic Tiffany “New York” Pollard GIF at this moment.     A Genius Gets Their Due I truly don’t think it’s possible to describe the mad brilliance of Cole Escola’s new off-Broadway [Oh, Mary](, a singular work of virtuoso comedy that is as inventive and shrewd as it is absolutely stupid. The gist: Escola, a comedian and actor who has accrued a passionate cult following for over a decade, stars as Mary Todd Lincoln—as in the wife of Abraham—in an 80-minute laughter fit that they also wrote. I’d say get yourself a ticket as soon as you can, except I’m sure it’s already sold out, the buzz (gays screaming about it all around New York City) has been so great.     Hang It in The Louvre I understand there are people for whom this photo is incomprehensible and doesn’t matter much. But for those for whom it does matter, this image of The Gilded Age star Morgan Spector wearing a t-shirt featuring fanart of his co-star Carrie Coon in character while in a gym wearing no pants is a new Mona Lisa.     More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Phaedra and C.T. are TV’s greatest new power couple on The Traitors. [Read more](. The new horniest show on HBO is…Jodie Foster’s True Detective? [Read more](. Here’s the story of how Feud: Capote vs. the Swans made that incredible Black and White Ball episode. [Read more](.   [See This]   - Couple to Throuple: [Diabolical trash](…which is exactly what you want. (Now on Peacock) - The Taste of Things: Food in film has [never been so sensual](. (Now in theaters) - One Day: Sexy and gorgeous and [somehow better]( than the Anne Hathaway version. (Now on Netflix) [Skip This]   - Halo: Shouldn’t a show based on a video game [be more fun](? (Now on Paramount+) - Lisa Frankenstein: We’re rooting for Diablo Cody’s comeback…and [we’re still rooting](. (Now in theaters)   Like our take on what to watch? Check out our See Skip newsletter! [Sign up for free](     [The logo for Daily Beast's Obsessed] [TV]( [Movies]( [Reviews]( [Previews]( [TV]( [Reviews]( [Movies]( [Previews]( [Daily Beast Obsessed Facebook]( [Daily Beast Obsessed Twitter]( [Daily Beast Obsessed Instagram](   Advertisement   Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up here.](   [Daily Beast]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © 2024 The Daily Beast Company LLC I 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY, 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, click here to [view this email in your browser.]( To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can [safely unsubscribe.](