For over eight seasons, ABC’s The Rookie has been one of the best procedurals on television today. The drama provides plenty of heart-racing action and intriguing relationships between the characters. Whether you tune in for the exciting police chases or the developing romance between Chenford, The Rookie continues to be a good time. However, there’s one more long-running network procedural that is still proving it tops even The Rookie‘s action-packed episodes.
‘9-1-1’ Continues To Outdo Itself With Thrilling Storylines and Lovable Characters
ABC’s 9-1-1 has just entered its 10th season, but there are no signs of the series spinning its wheels. Since its premiere back in 2018, the Ryan Murphy-produced show continues to offer a fascinating portrayal of the lives of first responders working in Los Angeles. With characters who take on positions in Station 118 of the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, and a 9-1-1 dispatch center, the drama showcases these brave individuals who will stop at nothing to save lives. Each episode features wild emergencies that our characters must fight their way through. The hallmark of the show has become a new citywide emergency that threatens lives every season. By now, our first responders have tackled everything from an earthquake and a tsunami to a Beenado and a volcano erupting in downtown LA. These high-stakes disasters have allowed the series to continue to top itself, forever ensuring that viewers always stay on the edge of their seats.
COLLIDERInteractive
Five wards on call
TV/Medical Drama/Shift Assignment
Sinus rhythm · Bay 0172 BPM
PTMC CGH GSM PPTH SHH
Collider · TV Medicine Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? Eight questions · five wards · one assignment
Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television: brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for, and eight questions will work out exactly where you belong. Wards accepting
PTMCThe Pitt
CGHER
GSMGrey’s Anatomy
PPTHHouse
SHHScrubs
Question 01 of 08APPROACH
01 A critical patient comes through the door. What is your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you really are.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 02 of 08MOTIVATION
02 Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you would give in an interview.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 03 of 08COLLEAGUES
03 What do you want most from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 04 of 08LOSS
04 You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who has worked a long shift has had to answer this one.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 05 of 08STYLE
05 How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 06 of 08RULES
06 How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 07 of 08TOLL
07 What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What is yours?
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Question 08 of 08PURPOSE
08 At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this one is the most honest thing about you.
Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance
Assignment madeYou belong in
PTMC · Admitted The Pitt Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center This ward asks whether you can stay in the room for the whole shift, and come back tomorrow.
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has shown, the one that puts you inside a single long shift and does not let you look away. You need your work to be real rather than romanticized, and you find your purpose inside the work itself rather than in the chaos around it. You have made peace with a job that takes from you constantly and gives back in ways that are harder to name. What this ward asks of you
Meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
The discipline to stay present when the department is at its worst.
A tolerance for weight that does not get put down at the end of the day.
From the Collider file
Each episode covers roughly one hour of the same emergency-department shift, in order.
Noah Wyle has now won the lead drama actor Emmy for it twice, in 2025 and again in 2026.
It reunites the ER team of Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, thirty years on.
Fully present No romance Built to endure
CGH · Admitted ER County General Hospital, Chicago This ward asks whether you can hold the line long enough for the next person to take it.
You are the one who keeps the whole floor moving. Not the most brilliant in the room, possibly the most essential. You show up, do the work, absorb the losses and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is. You care about patients as individual people rather than as cases to solve or dramas to live inside, and you believe in the system even on the days it fails you. What this ward asks of you
Reliability above brilliance, every single shift.
Faith in a structure that is visibly imperfect.
The stamina to treat the hundredth patient like the first.
From the Collider file
Fifteen seasons and 331 episodes, from 1994 to 2009, created by Michael Crichton.
It holds the record for the most Emmy nominations of any drama series, with 124.
George Clooney, Julianna Margulies and Noah Wyle all broke out of County General.
Shows up Endurance Patient first
GSM · Admitted Grey’s Anatomy Grey Sloan Memorial, Seattle This ward asks whether you can do the work with your whole self in the room.
You came to medicine with everything you have, your ambition, your feelings, your relationships and your history, and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door. You form deep attachments to the people you work with, and your personal and professional lives stay permanently, chaotically tangled. That tangle drives both your worst disasters and your most remarkable saves, because you understand that extraordinary medicine often happens where clinical skill meets human connection. What this ward asks of you
A willingness to feel all of it rather than seal any of it off.
Colleagues who become family, with everything that costs.
Comfort with mess, in the OR and everywhere else.
From the Collider file
Shonda Rhimes’ series passed ER to become the longest-running primetime medical drama
on US television.
It is on season 22, with ABC having already renewed it for a twenty-third.
Ellen Pompeo has played Meredith Grey across three decades of television.
Feels everything Found family Beautifully messy
PPTH · Admitted House Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital This ward asks whether you can be right when everyone in the room needs you to be wrong.
You are drawn to the problem above everything: the symptom that does not fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one. The patient as a person is not your first motivation, though you are capable of caring more than you would admit. You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong. Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary and impossible mind, and everyone near it is there because they can keep up. What this ward asks of you
Thinking harder than anyone else in the room, then defending it.
A high tolerance for being disliked while you are right.
Interest in the puzzle that outlasts your interest in being comfortable.
From the Collider file
Eight seasons built on Sherlock Holmes: House and Holmes, Wilson and Watson, and an
apartment at 221B.
Hugh Laurie taped his audition in a hotel bathroom in Namibia while shooting another film.
By 2008 it was the most-watched television show on earth, with an audience around 82
million.
Chases the puzzle Difficult on purpose Usually right
SHH · Admitted Scrubs Sacred Heart Hospital, California This ward asks whether you can hold the tragedy and the absurdity at the same time.
You understand that medicine is devastating and ridiculous in roughly equal measure, and that the only sane response is to carry both at once. You are warm, self-aware and funnier than most people in your field. You use humor to get through terrible moments, which at Sacred Heart is a survival strategy rather than a flaw. You lean on the people around you and let them lean back, because here the laughter and the grief are inseparable. What this ward asks of you
Humor that never curdles into cruelty.
The honesty to admit you are still learning how to do this.
People you can lean on, and the willingness to be leaned on.
From the Collider file
Nine seasons from Bill Lawrence, filmed largely inside a real decommissioned hospital in
North Hollywood.
Working doctors have repeatedly named it the most accurate medical show on television.
Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke returned for an ABC revival that premiered in
February 2026.
Laughs to cope Still learning Leans on people
Shift report · your top three
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Chart signed byCOLLIDERCollider.com · The TV Desk
But it’s not just the terrifying and sometimes bizarre emergencies that make 9-1-1 worth watching. The series also thrives by creating characters that feel authentic and lovable. It’s easy to root for the brilliant, tough-as-nails Athena Grant (Angela Bassett), as she solves cases for the LAPD or handles drama with her children. We’re always cheering on Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark) as he continues to find his way both at the fire station and in life. His sister, Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), and her now-husband, Howard “Chimney” Han (Kenneth Choi), have both been put through the wringer every season, but their loving relationship has been a joy to watch unfold. Sometimes the series offers silly or lighthearted conflicts between characters, but the chemistry the whole cast has with each other is one of the main reasons that 9-1-1 is still going strong so many seasons later.
‘9-1-1’ Is Flourishing After Its Season 8 Reset
The creative team behind 9-1-1 took a major risk in Season 8, and a dramatic scripted event has led to the show having a new lease on life. Season 8 saw the death of one of the show’s main characters, Captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause). The episode was a heart-wrenching and thrilling story, where the always heroic Bobby ends up succumbing to a deadly viral outbreak. Many fans were furious at Bobby’s demise, as he felt like the heart of the show. But this storyline actually proved to be a valuable reset for the veteran series. With this plot point, the characters all faced a truly life-changing event, and his death altered the dynamic of the fire station and the relationships between many of the characters. Bobby’s death created a multitude of storylines for the series, many of them allowing the show to head in a wide variety of intriguing directions with new challenges and conflicts for the characters. Although the death was a major shake-up for the show, in the end, it created a refresh in tone that has given the show a new direction, and helped 9-1-1 to avoid any ennui that plagues some long-running shows. 9-1-1 has also shown wisdom in starting to focus on younger characters, like May (Corinne Massiah) and Harry Grant (Elijah M. Cooper), who can continue to carry the mantle for a new generation of first responders ready to save the day.
Although the series sometimes trends into campy territory, that’s what makes it all the more fun to watch. You never know what outlandish circumstances the team will find themselves in, and this is why 9-1-1 is continuing to stand the test of time. Season 10 kicked off in October with a lethal citywide emergency, several life-threatening situations for the characters, and a promise that the procedural shows no sign of slowing down yet.
9-1-1 airs Thursday nights on ABC and is available to stream the next day on Hulu in the U.S.
