Sheriff Country is premiering on CBS in a big way with a combination of cameos from Fire Country stars and a surprise crossover event.
Before CBS released the official trailer for Sheriff Country on Wednesday, September 24, creators Tony Phelan and Joan Rater teased exclusively to Us Weekly how the two shows would intersect on screen.
“Right now we are focusing on crossovers between Sheriff and Fire because I just feel like we want to build out our world of Edgewater,” Rater teased. “It’ll be fun for the fans to see when a character will pop in [from each show]. Then we’re going to have a big crossover event.”
Phelan, meanwhile, said it was important to find “those organic ways [and] reasons why” the characters in Fire Country and Sheriff Country “would be in each other’s” worlds.
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“Then we’ve got an instance where a character kind of unexpectedly pops up and you’re like, ‘Oh right, these people are all in the same town.’ Because we took time and had Morena [Baccarin] on two episodes of Fire, it doesn’t feel weird,” Phelan teased. “It does feel like they’re in the same town and they use the same references. In the Sheriff Country pilot — especially — you see the town, you meet the townspeople and it feels very much like it’s all one universe.”
The town of Edgewater was originally introduced when Fire Country premiered in 2022 with inmate Bode (Max Thieriot) returning home and volunteering for the California Conservation Camp Program during season 1 of the hit show. By season 2, a backdoor pilot set up the world of Sheriff Country, which is centered around Sharon’s (Diane Farr) estranged sister Mickey (Baccarin) as she solves crimes in town.
“They’re very different shows in that Sheriff is a mystery. Fire is all about the incident that happens and how it affects our people,” Phelan noted. “Sheriff is about creating these mysteries, creating these crimes and then saying, ‘How do we pursue it? How do we make sure the audience doesn’t get ahead of us?’ And then, ‘How do those crimes affect what our people are going through in their personal lives?’”
He continued: “But I think for people who like cop shows, it’s a different kind of cop show. It’s a cop show where you roll up on an incident and you know everybody. You know their history and you’re not necessarily looking to arrest people. You’re looking to see if you can defuse the situation — and then if you can’t — you resort to having to take your handcuffs out. But I think there’s a freshness about it in terms of the small town nature of the story that it feels new.”
Baccarin has already appeared in two episodes of Fire Country, in which it was revealed that Sharon was at odds with Mickey after her stepsister busted Bode when he was a reckless teenager. After Bode got into more trouble as an adult, Sharon blamed Mickey for not supporting her nephew.
Mickey subsequently dropped a bombshell on Sharon when she revealed her daughter, Skye, has struggled with addiction. The episode brought Mickey and Sharon closer together as they worked to track down the person who killed Edgewater’s sheriff. Their reconciliation paved the way for more crossovers between Fire Country and Sheriff Country.
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“We got so lucky with Morena to find an actor who not only fit into our show but fit into Fire Country. But she also has her own identity and she’s such a complex character,” Phelan told Us. “It felt like a natural outgrowth of the show. But this is a show that has its own identity — that would be related to Fire Country — yet would be more of a mystery Show. And the characters in and around her are different than the characters in and around Max on Fire Country.”
While there have been reports of other possible spinoffs, the plan is to expand Fire Country and Sheriff Country for now.
“We are just so committed to making sure that our two shows are the best shows they can be. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have conversations,” Rater teased. “But that kind of beautiful thing when a show grows from another show, it is there. It has to happen organically and magically. You just keep nurturing your shows and your characters and then those things happen. But right now we’re just in the nurturing place.”
Fire Country returns to CBS Friday, October 17, at 8 p.m. ET and Sheriff Country premieres at 9 p.m. ET before streaming on Paramount+.
