EXCLUSIVE: It’s official: the upcoming fifth season of Fox‘s 9-1-1: Lone Star will be its last. The first responders drama’s final 12-episode run kicks off Sept. 23, with the series finale slated for early 2025.
This marks a milestone for Fox as Lone Star is the last drama series on the network produced by its former corporate sibling 20th Television which used to supply the majority of the Fox’s scripted series before the TV studio, along with other assets, was sold to Disney in 2019. (20th TV also is behind Fox’s legacy animated comedies, which are up for renewal this season.)
Like with the mothership 9-1-1, which ended its run on Fox last year after six seasons, the cancellation of Lone Star is a product of the changing economics of the TV business, especially on the linear side and particularly for non-vertically integrated broadcast networks.
Unlike 9-1-1, Lone Star is not expected to jump to ABC, the new sister network of 9-1-1 franchise producer 20th TV which has renewed the flagship for an eight season. But 9-1-1 could get another spinoff on ABC in a new location, with Las Vegas among potential cities rumored to follow Los Angeles (9-1-1) and Austin (9-1-1: Lone Star).
9-1-1: Lone Star ending its run gives Fox a marketing opportunity to promote Season 5 as a sendoff for the series, something the network was not able to do with 9-1-1 due to its pending move to ABC.
“From the start, fans have followed the heroic and deeply moving stories of the men and women who make up Austin’s 126, so a huge thanks to one of the greatest creative teams in all of television — Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear — for creating one of the most action-packed dramas anywhere,” Fox TV Network President Michael Thorn said. “Now in our final season of the show, we’re set to give it the high-stakes send-off it deserves, complete with breathless rescues, insurmountable odds and relatable personal struggles, thanks to our incomparable, stellar cast led by Rob Lowe and Gina Torres.”
This is not a sudden development. As Deadline reported in June, most of the main cast had been under the assumption that the 9-1-1: Lone Star was coming to an end with Season 5 since late last year, following two unsuccessful attempts at contract renegotiations. After the most recent one, original cast member Sierra McClain departed the series, with multiple other actors starring to read, meet and audition for other projects months ago.
They are now free to do so — as Deadline reported, cast options were up when production on Season 5 wrapped July 19 and, as expected, were not picked up.
Still, I hear that as recently as last month, there was an outreach from Fox to 20th TV about potentially extending the series but the door to more 9-1-1: Lone Star is now permanently shut. (Series star/executive producer Rob Lowe, who has a first-look pact with the network where he also hosts and executive produces game show The Floor, had been willing to return after the cast’s options expired if a path to a sixth season was found.)
“The economics weren’t going to pan out for this show for us,” Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade said about 9-1-1 when the series jumped to ABC in May 2023.
While not quite as expensive as 9-1-1, spinoff Lone Star has similar economics. Developed as a high-end drama series by a vertically integrated studio years before the sky started falling out at the broadcast networks, 9-1-1: Lone Star costs significantly more to make than the $3M-$4M per episode Fox is targeting for dramas in its current disciplined approach as an indie network.
As Fox has no ownership in 9-1-1: Lone Star, it is paying a license fee, something the network has been willing to keep doing. But producing the show, the Disney-owned 20th TV has been running a “deficit,” covering the gap between the size of the licensing fee and what it costs to make the series.
That reportedly contributed to the decision not to have original episodes of Lone Star during the 2023-24 season, which was impacted by strike-related production delays. As Deadline reported, Fox had been lobbying for an 18-episode order, 6 episodes to run in midseason 2024 post-strike and 12 in fall 2024, but ultimately had to settle for 12 episodes for fall. (9-1-1 delivered 10 episodes for ABC last season.)
Lowe stars as Capt. Owen Strand, a New York firefighter who, along with his adult son, T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein), relocates to Austin to rebuild a firehouse which experienced a tragedy of their own. Strand’s new team includes Captain Tommy Vega (Gina Torres), Judd Ryder (Jim Parrack), Marjan Marwani (Natacha Karam), Paul Strickland (Brian Michael Smith), and rookie firefighter Mateo Chavez (Julian Works). Rafael Silva and Brianna Baker also star.
In the upcoming fifth season, Captains Strand and Vega, along with the 126 team, race into action when in a multi-episodic opening storyline, a catastrophic train derailment endangers several lives including some of their own.
9-1-1: Lone Star is created and executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear. Bradley Buecker, who directed the series premiere, also is an executive producer alongside Rashad Raisani, John J. Gray, Angela Bassett, Lowe, Carly Soteras and Wolfe Coleman.
Taking on the mantle as Fox’s flagship drama after 9-1-1‘s departure, Lone Star has ranked as a Top 10 drama among adults 18-49 (L+7) in each broadcast season it has aired. Season 4 averaged 9.6 total multi-platform viewers, more than doubling its Live + Same Day delivery (+166%).
