9-1-1 staged a stealth crossover of sorts earlier this season, enlisting a power player from 9-1-1: Lone Star for a pivotal moment in the three-part premiere.
Gina Torres, who plays paramedic captain Tommy Vega on Fox’s Lone Star, made a voice cameo in the Oct. 3 episode of 9-1-1, voicing the dispatcher who performed the final call at Emmett’s funeral during Athena’s flashback.
“All units, clear the air for priority traffic,” she began. “Dispatch calling 237, Officer Washington. This is the final call for 237. Officer Emmett Washington is 10-7. Thank you for your dedication, service and loyalty. You can rest easy. We have the watch from here.”
Given the heaviness of Athena’s slain fiancé’s funeral, adding Torres’ comforting presence to the flashback was a nice touch, as well as a subtle treat for fans of the 9-1-1 franchise.
During the editing process, it’s not uncommon for a producer or editor to provide a temporary voiceover, one that ultimately gets replaced by an actual actor. But in this instance, Minear “really wanted to understand how this moment was going to feel” for the audience, inspiring him to enlist Torres’ help.
“I called Gina and just said, ‘Hey, can you do a little voiceover for me?’” Minear tells TVLine. “I needed a great voice, and she’s got the best voice. She’s even the voice on a ride at Disney World, if I’m not mistaken — and I’m not.” (Editor’s note: It’s true, he’s not mistaken. Torres is the host of Mission: SPACE at EPCOT.)
After “four or five takes,” Minear put Torres’ audio into the network cut. It wasn’t necessarily meant to make the final edit, but when this episode arrived at the mixing stage, Minear opted to keep it in, confident that no one else would have done it better than Torres.
“I’m always looking for reasons to employ Gina Torres,” Minear says. And he means that. Their working relationship dates back to The WB’s Angel and went on to include Fox’s Firefly, nearly two decades before Torres joined the 9-1-1 universe.
And Torres’ cameo wasn’t the only loose connection between 9-1-1 and its spinoff this season. During 9-1-1‘s Halloween episode, Bobby (played by Peter Krause) announced that it was the 118’s turn to host the haunted house, adding that the 126 did it last year. That same number is shared by the firehouse at the center of 9-1-1: Lone Star; Minear confirms that Bobby’s line was “just a little wink” at the spinoff.
With Lone Star now midway through its fifth and final season on Fox, fans are wondering what the future could hold for Tommy and the gang. Specifically, could any of them migrate over to 9-1-1? Or even to the second spinoff currently in development at ABC?
“I have no current plans for that,” Minear tells us, “but it’s not impossible.”
