The *Real* Reason 9-1-1-: Lone Star Is Suddenly Off the Air
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Just weeks after news broke of its cancellation, 9-1-1: Lone Star sparked speculation that it ended early when it was suddenly off the air a week after it dropped the bombshell that EMS Captain Tommy Vega might have cancer and married couple Carlos Reyes and TK Strand could be divorcing. But what happened really and why is 9-1-1: Lone Star not on?
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Why isn’t 9-1-1: Lone Star on tonight?
9-1-1: Lone Star took a break on Monday, October 28, 2024, because of the MLB 2024 World Series, which aired on FOX — the same network that airs 9-1-1: Lone Star — from 8 to 11 p.m.
The game coincided with 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s usual time slot of 8 to 9 p.m. on FOX. FOX’s other Monday night show, Rescue: HI-Surf, which typically airs from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., also skipped this week due to the MLB World Series.
More: See the 9-1-1 cast’s salary per episode
When does 9-1-1: Lone Star come back?
9-1-1: Lone Star returns on November 4, 2024 — a week after the MLB 2024 World Series — to its original time slot on FOX of 8 to 9 p.m.
Fans will have to say goodbye to 9-1-1: Lone Star soon, however. News broke in September 2024 that FOX had cancelled 9-1-1: Lone Star with its series finale set to air in early 2025. 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s fifth and final season premiered on September 23, 2024, with the first of its last 12 episodes. At the time of writing, 9-1-1: Lone Star has aired five episodes, which means that its series finale should air around early January 2025, accounting for hiatuses due to the holidays.
In an interview with Variety in October 2024, creator Ryan Murphy explained why 9-1-1: Lone Star was cancelled while revealing that another 9-1-1 spinoff was in the works at ABC, the home of the original 9-1-1 series that moved networks in 2023 after FOX also cancelled it. As Murphy explained, 9-1-1: Lone Star wouldn’t have lasted at FOX as a spinoff of 9-1-1 because ABC is owned by Disney General Entertainment Content, the rival of Fox Corporation.
“Tim Minear and I are working on a new spinoff that we’re actually writing, and that we hope to get on the air next fall,” Murphy said. “Sadly, we all love Lone Star, but the financials just didn’t work. It’s a Disney company that was on a Fox network, and it just was never going to work. And we had a long run of it. So now we’re going to launch a new show in a new city that I can’t name, but it’s fun. And ‘9-1-1’ moved to ABC and suddenly became, I think, the biggest show on Thursday night. They obviously have an appetite for that, so we’re going to give them another one that I really love.”
Rob Lowe, who plays protagonist Owen Strand, also told Variety prior to 9-1-1: Lone Star’s cancellation news that he went into Season 5 expecting the series to end. “We all went into it pretty much knowing that it was going to be the last season, so that affected everything we did,” he said. “We wanted to really show everybody what is still possible in network television if people have the appetite to do it. It feels like it’s probably the end of an era of a certain type — well, it doesn’t feel like it. It is the end of an era of a certain type of show we once had an opportunity to make, and I think they’re great. We wanted to go out making our case for the value of shows like that, and I think we did a really good job. The stories that we were able to tell on a weekly basis in terms of the scope and scale — that’s probably the thing I’m the most proud of. They were truly like mini-movies every week.”
9-1-1: Lone Star is available to stream on Hulu.
Watch ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ on Hulu
Meet the 9-1-1 cast’s children in real life in the gallery below.