And the show has other stars: the emergencies themselves. Each of the three in the pilot episode is introduced like a graphic on the local evening news, with an audio wave and subtitles adorning each call to Britton's operator.
9-1-1, from showrunner Ryan Murphy and longtime collaborators Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear, has a characteristic streak of acerbic humor that comes out in unexpected moments.
The reason 9-1-1 seems even worse than it is, is that it has such good actors performing such awful material. How awful?: Somebody flushes a baby down a toilet!
Stick with it, and 9-1-1 exceeds expectations, covering a whole lot of ground in terms of providing little insights into the characters' lives while conjuring unusual twists.
It's when we go off-duty with these heroes, played by one of TV's most ridiculously overqualified casts, that the show flatlines with maudlin subplots that might have been rejected by General Hospital.
There is something breezily watchable about Ryan Murphy doing TV comfort food, rather than the usual genre fusion that puts off the picky eaters among us.
