Photo Credit: ABC - Mitch Haaseth Episode "Contain the Flame" - Upon the arrival of Batallion Chief Frankel, Jack begins his first shift as co-captain and continues to butt heads with Andy on leadership styles. Captain Pruitt has a difficult time following doctor's orders and winds up back at the station to take on administrative duties. Meanwhile, the rest of the team at Station 19 responds to an attic fire at JJ's apartment building and a call to a pool house party, on "Station 19," THURSDAY, MARCH 29 (9:00-10:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network.
Station 19 fans are in luck: the show has been renewed for another season. What’s more exciting is that the show is going to share a universe with Grey’s Anatomy.
A recent Deadline article stated that the decision to integrate the two series into a shared universe comes as a result of the success of the shows’ two crossover events this season. At ABC’s upfront presentation recently, showrunner Krista Vernoff said, “People can expect crossover event between these series every week.”
Deadline writes, “Powered by strong delayed-viewing gains, the recent second Grey’s Anatomy-Station 19crossover event drove ABC to win the Thursday 8-10 PM time slot among Adults 18-49 after three days of TV playback, with Grey’s Anatomy matching a 5-week high and Station 19 soaring to its 2nd highest-rated telecast ever.”
Season 2 of Station 19 averaged a .96 in the 180-49 demographic, and 5.32 million viewers. Compared to season one, that number was down 8%. That places it 7th in the lineup of ABC’s top-rated shows. The network’s No. 1 show is Grey’s Anatomy with a 1.57 in the 18-49 demographic and 6.808 million viewers, followed by The Conners with a 1.56 in the 18-49 demographic.
In a May interview with Assignment X, director and executive producer Paris Barclay discussed Station 19. Asked what makes the show different from other first-responder series, he explained:
Well, it’s Shonda Rhimes. So STATION 19 is a fire station as reinvented by the spirit of Shonda Rhimes. So probably a real fire station like this wouldn’t go exactly this way. But we’re in the Shonda Rhimes world, where we have much more equality, where we have all sorts of women firefighters, where people of color are treated with respect. It’s probably not necessarily going to be the way it is [in the real world]. It’s a GREY’S ANATOMY spinoff, and like Shonda, we go a little bit deeper into the characters and their relationships, and they fall in love with each other a lot more often – although they do on [Fox’s first-responder drama] 9-1-1, too. [But STATION 19] is more of a romance, I think, than 9-1-1, which is more of an action/adventure story.
He added on, “Yes. It is more fun, and there is less killing. And when people do die, it’s usually accidental.”
Be sure to tune into the season finale of Station 19 tonight on ABC at 9pm ET/PT.