9-1-1: Nashville is coming in hot to ABC — but its upcoming time slot raises more questions about whether Joshua Jackson‘s Doctor Odyssey show is coming to an end.
ABC announced on Tuesday, May 13, that 9-1-1 returns to Thursday nights this fall. It will lead into spinoff show 9-1-1: Nashville and then Grey’s Anatomy will wrap up that block of time. The twist? The Thursday 9 p.m. ET slot was reserved for Doctor Odyssey, which concludes its first season this week. Its future at ABC, however, remains undetermined.
The network released a first look at the newest 9-1-1 iteration, confirming the show’s cast, including Chris O’Donnell, Jessica Capshaw, LeAnn Rimes and Kimberly Williams-Paisley.
Details on their characters have yet to be released but the official character breakdown for O’Donnell’s character described Captain Don Sharpe as “a rugged fire captain and rodeo rider who runs Nashville’s busiest firehouse with his beloved son.” Don is a “devoted husband and family man but he has his secrets.”
The 9-1-1 universe originated with the OG series, which premiered on Fox in 2018. It followed the professional and personal lives of Los Angeles first responders with stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Aisha Hinds, Oliver Stark, Connie Britton and Kenneth Choi. Fox canceled the series in 2023, which allowed ABC to swoop in and renew the show that is currently still airing on the network.
9-1-1 then expanded with 9-1-1: Lone Star, which followed a New York firefighter (played by Rob Lowe) who relocated to Texas while trying to balance his job alongside his personal issues. Liv Tyler, Ronen Rubinstein, Rafael L. Silva, Sierra McClain, Jim Parrack, Natacha Karam, Brian Michael Smith, Julian Works and Gina Torres made up the rest of the cast.
By 2023, 9-1-1: Lone Star was renewed for its fifth and final season after remaining on Fox. Cocreators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear, meanwhile, shifted their focus to the Nashville spinoff.
Doctor Odyssey, meanwhile, marked Jackson’s return to TV as a doctor who started a new job on a luxury cruise ship and in typical Ryan Murphy fashion, the show has introduced out-of-the-box medical cases and star-studded celebrity appearances.
“[Cocreator] Ryan [Murphy]’s imagination is prolific and bizarre in its ability to hold [space] for the absolutely grotesque and absurd — and then there are his lighter and happier shows. All of that being inside of one man’s imagination is amazing,” Jackson exclusively told Us Weekly in March. “I will say that for myself, I have wanted to work for Ryan for quite a long time.”
Jackson credited Murphy for being the reason why he joined Doctor Odyssey. “Ryan’s word was sparkle. He said, ‘Make sure that my show sparkles,'” he recalled. “And we have tried to make sure that this show sparkles as much as possible and just hope that the joy that we feel in performing it and doing it all together is what comes across while you’re watching it.”
ABC has yet to renew the show, which premiered in September 2024, amid rumors that Doctor Odyssey is too costly to continue. The upcoming season finale will pick up after Max seemingly was injured in a structural collapse at a church hours after surviving an earthquake and tsunami combo.
