FIRE COUNTRY: A COMPLETE AND UTTER FLAME OUT

Fire Country is an American Action Drama Television Series about a young convict with a troubled past, hoping to redeem himself and shorten his prison sentence by volunteering for the California Conservation Camp Program in which prisoners assist the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. The Series was created by Max Thieriot, Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, with Jerry Bruckheimer serving as Executive Producer. The Series stars Thieriot, along with Kevin Alejandro, Jordan Calloway, Stephanie Arcila, Jules Latimer, Diane Farr, and Billy Burke. It premiered on October 7, 2022 on CBS.

The show currently has a meager 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an Audience Score of just 46%. It also has a Metascore of 56 (based on only 7 critic reviews) on Metacritic, and a 7.2/10 on IMDB (based on 5,400 reviews).

I’m taking a deep breath as I write this review, because I take absolutely no pleasure in ripping a show to shreds, mostly because I understand all too well just how hard it is to make a good TV Show, but this show is not good. This show is a very good example of what middling network television looks like in an era where there are tons of up and coming writers with fresh ideas, but who are locked out of Hollywood because they don’t yet know the right people (It’s pretty hard to get less than a 50% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes).

The premise of this show is an interesting one. In fact, it’s what made me tune in. But the story arc is a bit ridiculous and the writers use cheap tricks in order to manufacture drama, and those kinds of things can work if they are a one off and well executed, but the writers here seem to rely too heavily upon them, almost like they know it’s all they had. The story arc is also very badly flawed. And speaking of the writing…it’s bad…really bad…cringe worthy, even. And don’t get me wrong, most procedurals are poorly written, mostly because they usually have ensemble casts, and so the writers go to great pains to make sure everyone has something to say, but in this case, the writers also spend a lot of time breaking a hard and fast screenwriting rule: Show don’t tell. Good acting may have been able to save this dumpster fire, but here the acting is just so-so, so you’ll have to look elsewhere to find reason to get through 18 episodes of this.

I believe “Rescue Me” to be the greatest Firefighter Drama ever made, for a lot of reasons. This show isn’t that. It’s not even close. It’s not even “Chicago Fire” (my 2nd place winner in this category), which I think started off extremely well, but has, at this point, grossly over-stayed its welcome. Despite that fact, the show still manages to be mildly interesting and even compelling at times, by making us care about the men and women in Firehouse 51, something Fire Country tries to pull off, but doesn’t accomplish nearly as well. With that being said, Fire Country got renewed for a second season in January of this year. So I guess we’ll see if the writers can put out the fire they started with an awful first season.

If you have a real interest in seeing this show, it’s currently available on Pluto TV (for free). It’s also available on Paramount +, YouTube, YouTube TV, Hulu, Roku, Amazon Prime Video (with subscription). You can also watch it by the episode on Apple TV, Google Play Movies and Vudu ($1.99/Episode).