CBS has given an early series order to “Sheriff Country,” a new spin-off of hit Eye network drama “Fire Country.” But rather than airing the show next fall or midseason, CBS plans to save “Sheriff Country” for the 2025-2026 TV season.
The show comes out of a “Fire Country” backdoor pilot that aired on April 12 as the episode “Alert the Sheriff.” In that episode and in the series, Morena Baccarin (“Homeland”) stars as “straight-shooting sheriff Mickey Fox,” the stepsister of “Fire Country’s” Cal Fire division chief Sharon Leone (Diane Farr). Per the logline, Mickey “investigates criminal activity as she patrols the streets of small-town Edgewater while contending with her ex-con father and a mysterious incident involving her wayward daughter.”
Tony Phelan and Joan Rater are writing the first “Sheriff Country” episode, with story by Phelan, Rater and Max Thieriot. Executive producers are Thieriot, Phelan, Rater, and Jerry Bruckheimer and KristieAnne Reed for Jerry Bruckheimer TV. Like “Fire Country,” the spin-off comes from CBS Studios.
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CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach announced the series order on Thursday, as the network announced its 2024-2025 schedule and its upcoming programming plans. Reisenbach said the early, early series order is an example of how the network is mixing up its programming development strategy.
“As we’ve said over and over, we do long-term development at CBS now,” Reisenbach told reporters. “‘Sheriff Country’ is hot. It’s so hot that we’ve decided to make our first series pickup for 25-26 and ‘Sheriff Country’ will join the schedule next year as our series pick up. This will give us plenty of time to cast it, to figure out how we want to produce it, give us scheduling time, marketing time. It’s a huge opportunity for us and it really speaks to the kind of development we want to be doing right now.”
CBS had already picked up a Season 3 of “Fire Country,” which stars Thieriot along with Farr, Billy Burke, Kevin Alejandro, Stephanie Arcila, Jordan Calloway, and Jules Latimer. Thieriot co-created the series along with Phelan and Rater.