As if the fall TV season wasn’t busy enough already, ABC is moving premiere dates for several shows.
The network is shifting the season 9 premiere of 9-1-1, the series premiere of 9-1-1: Nashville and the season 22 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy — all originally scheduled for October 16 — to earlier than anticipated. All three will now air on October 9.
This allows ABC to start rolling out their Thursday lineup before CBS brings back their programming on October 16, which includes Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, Ghosts, Matlock and Elsbeth. NBC, meanwhile, has Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime and Fox is releasing Hell’s Kitchen and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test on September 25.
ABC’s programming shakeup comes as the network gears up to expand its 9-1-1 universe with a Nashville version. 9-1-1 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.
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9-1-1 then expanded with 9-1-1: Lone Star, which followed a New York City 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.
9-1-1: Lone Star has since wrapped up its run after remaining on Fox while cocreators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear shifted their focus to the Nashville spinoff.
“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. Sadly, we all love Lone Star, but the financials just didn’t work,” Murphy, 59, told Variety in October 2024. “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.”
He continued: “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.”
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The Nashville iteration stars Chris O’Donnell, Jessica Capshaw, LeAnn Rimes and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. When Minear, 61, was previously asked whether 9-1-1: Lone Star alums will make cameos in the spinoff, he told TV Line in November 2024, “I have no current plans for that. But it’s not impossible!”
The president of Disney Television Group, Craig Erwich, also teased what fans can expect from 9-1-1 Nashville.
“I think that the 9-1-1 team are truly the masters of event-izing television, the way that bee-nado kicked off 9-1-1 last year,” Erwich told Deadline in May. “They have a really special event planned for 9-1-1: Nashville, and although we haven’t discussed [crossovers], I think it’s an incredible opportunity that I’m sure at some point we’ll figure out how to capitalize on. What 9-1-1’s been able to do, it’s really a master class in television, which is consistently event-izing that show to keep it fresh after all these many years, my hat’s off to Tim and Ryan for that.”
