This is not a drill
ANGELA Bassett, leading lady of procedural drama 9-1-1, remembers dialing the North American emergency number once. “I’m a Florida girl, and we didn’t have fireplaces. I’ve been in my (Los Angeles) home 11 years, and I hadn’t lit it once until last year when I had a friend over. I thought the flue (chimney) was open, but it was closed,” she recalls in an interview with AARP.
“Suddenly, embers were flying everywhere! I put on oven mitts and got pancake spatulas to put it out – I made a big mess out of it. I realised I had to call the fire department, and I was very happy to see them.” The 10-episode 9-1-1 follows the lives of first responders – the police, paramedics, firefighters – on and off the job. Bassett plays police sergeant Athena Grant who, on top of handling crisis situations at work, is trying to wrap her head around the bombshell her husband just dropped at home. Co-creator Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story) tells Variety the TV show was inspired by an emergency situation he encountered. “My son Ford was 11 months old and in the middle of the night stopped breathing. We called 911, and obviously we were in a panic and doing CPR, and they showed up. And at two in the morning there were four responders. They were incredibly calm and nurturing, and they brought him back to life.”
9-1-1 airs every Monday at 9pm on Fox HD (Astro Ch 724).