ASK Musings

So, I am a sucker for a medical-adjacent TV show. I still watch Grey’s Anatomy, I binged Chicago Med earlier this year. Loved ER when it was on, and I enjoyed the original 9-1-1. This one, a sort of spin-off, was set in Austin, Texas, and mostly followed the firefighters and paramedics at one station, though there was the obligatory copaganda in the form of a cop who then joined the Texas Rangers (which as an organization I just cannot take seriously).

The series just gone was the final series, had twelve episodes, and definitely pole-vaulted over the shark. There was the predictable storyline where one person was worried they had a certain disease, another person went with them for testing in solidarity, and lo and behold, the latter person ACTUALLY had that disease. There were near-death hallucinations where a person’s dead partner was in the room having a chat. There was — no joke — an imminent asteroid that ended up partially hitting a nuclear reactor, which led to a near-meltdown.

It was A LOT.

It was fine though, and there are parts of the series that I thought were very cool, if not exactly perfectly done. There was a Muslim firefighter who wore a hijab (in a previous season, at one fire scene her hijab came off, and the squad gathered around to cover her so no one would see until she was able to put something else on, which was cool). There was a couple where the guy was way shorter than the woman (look, it’s not a big thing, but how often do you really see that in media?). There was a dreamer in danger of deportation. There was a trans man firefighter. There were gay men. There were straight white Christian dudes too. They had a mix of society and that was nice to see.

I’m usually a completionist with TV shows, so I was always going to see this one through, and the series finale was both outlandish but also tied everything up. I appreciated that – they knew the show was ending, so they could write and resolve all the big storylines.