CBS Hammers The Final Nail In Fire Country’s Coffin

Published Sep 26, 2026, 9:10 AM EDT

Antonella Gugliersi (she/them) has been a feature writer for Screen Rant since 2021. While studying for her bachelor’s in Economics & Management, they started writing about movies and TV shows for Turin-based The Unconventional Mag. After a brief internship at TPI, she decided she wanted to pursue journalism and graduated with a degree in International Journalism from Brunel University.

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One decision by CBS risks destroying Fire Country, and teases about the upcoming season 5 make that reality all the more likely. Fire Country’s debut in the 2022-2023 TV cycle established it as an astounding success, with its series premiere ratings making Fire Country the most popular freshman TV show at the time. That wasn’t exactly replicated in Fire Country season 2, as the firefighting drama lost live and same-day viewers compared to season 1, despite remaining popular, as Fire Country season 2’s streaming data bumped the number of total viewers compared to season 1.

Season by season, Fire Country’s ratings became progressively worse. That isn’t unexpected in general with TV shows, but in Fire Country’s case, the downward turn was consistent and, more importantly, accompanied by glaring storytelling problems. That its spinoff, Sheriff Country, steadily outperformed Fire Country season 4 by a margin of at least a million viewers per episode except for six episodes is even more telling of the trouble Fire Country is in.

The interest in Fire Country season 1 prompted CBS to expand its universe with spinoffs, and a medical drama is set to eventually join Fire Country and Sheriff Country’s ranks. However, at a time of expansion for the franchise, CBS reduced Fire Country season 5’s episode count. While the decision is understandable based on Fire Country’s worsening performance season by season, it can also become the final nail in the coffin for the firefighting drama. This becomes especially worrisome in conjunction with information about the upcoming Fire Country season 5.

Fire Country Season 5's Shorter Run Can Make Its Character Problem Worse

It’s important to note that Fire Country season 5 secured an early renewal during the 2025-2026 TV cycle, making the situation for the firefighting drama not yet dire. Indeed, the lower ratings on their own and in comparison to Sheriff Country’s indicate an ongoing problem, but not one impossible to overcome. Even Fire Country season 5’s lower episode count doesn’t necessarily spell disaster. However, the comments of co-creator and star Max Thieriot about Fire Country season 5’s shorter run offer an insight into how season 5 approaches the change, and they aren’t altogether reassuring, despite that being their purpose.

Speaking to Collider about Fire Country season 5’s new showrunner, Eric Guggenheim, and its lower episode count, the tone of Thieriot’s interview was overall positive, hinting at Fire Country taking on the new challenges enthusiastically. However, in addressing the shorter run, Thieriot admitted to being a “story crammer when it comes to doing 13 instead of 20,” adding that the change “means we get to have 13 kick-ass episodes with super impactful moments and character moments in each episode.” Such an approach goes to the heart of a Fire Country problem that the first responder drama has yet to solve.

Since its inception, Fire Country struggled with motivating the true extent of its characters’ choices, rarely going below the surface of why they reacted in a specific way. It was evident in how Fire Country season 1 repeatedly presented seemingly overwhelming problems like Vince and Bode’s conflict or Bode’s antagonism with Sleeper, only to resolve them in a matter of episodes. This made recognizing a consistent pattern of behavior for Fire Country’s characters exceptionally difficult, as they often seemed to seesaw between opposing alternatives until they landed on something whose selection wasn’t really informed by their previous choices.

Wishing to compress 20 episodes' worth of “super impactful moments and character moments” in 13 episodes, as Thieriot suggested, hints at Fire Country season 5 being unable to tackle its character development problem. Instead, fewer episodes could very reasonably make it worse, as it was already a recurring issue in Fire Country when the firefighting drama had 20 episodes to shape the narrative. This could have the unintended effect of ruining Fire Country’s future, not as a direct result of fewer episodes, but because of a character problem going unsolved for too long, made worse by a shorter run.

Fire Country Needs Less Action To Help Its Disasters' Consequences Stick

Image via CBS

Due to its nature as a first-responder drama, disasters are inevitable in Fire Country. However, the high frequency with which they unfurl, Station 42’s impossibly high rate of success, and the lack of tangible, lasting consequences of each rescue call for Fire Country’s firefighters lower the stakes of the tragedies. Vince’s death, Fire Country’s biggest tragedy, is a prime example of that.

Despite invariably changing the show, as it meant a central, original character wasn’t part of the firefighting drama anymore, Vince’s death stopped heavily influencing the narrative halfway through Fire Country season 4. Losing him could have been a treasure trove of heart-wrenching drama for Fire Country, as it was big enough to justify it influencing the entire season, and yet Vince’s passing was only repeatedly mentioned throughout Fire Country season 4, without his death having durable repercussions for all characters’ storylines.

This wasn’t solely featured in the aftermath of Vince’s death. When disasters threatened one of Fire Country’s firefighters in season 1 or 2, their effects rarely lasted beyond the next episode. The lack of serious consequences to the firefighters’ lives, emotional states, or even livelihoods makes the threat of a new disaster coming for Edgewater moot, as its stakes are inevitably lower. Having more incidents would only make the problem more evident. In this context, a lower episode count could do Fire Country well if it means that the first-responder drama will include fewer disasters.

To Thieriot’s credit, he acknowledged that, despite the incidents always being fun, his focus is on the characters’ story arcs and making them work in a shorter timeframe for Fire Country season 5. At the same time, season 4 ending with a flood and season 5 reportedly featuring a prison break in a crossover event between Fire Country and Sheriff Country prove that incidents are not set to decrease in Edgewater, and this could make Fire Country’s future more challenging as a result.

How Fire Country Can Survive Its Franchise Expansion

CBS

Given how successful Fire Country has been for CBS to greenlight a spinoff in record time and consider several more, its cancellation as the franchise grows would be a calamity. After all, it would be especially unfortunate for the parent series not to end on its own terms while its spinoffs expanded its world. How fast each Fire Country season was renewed until now shows that we have yet to reach that point, but we are getting close to that reality if Fire Country season 5 doesn’t fix the firefighting drama’s longstanding issues.

It doesn’t help that Sheriff Country’s success only highlights Fire Country’s problems more. Indeed, the Fire Country spinoff’s maiden season pulled no punches, proving to be able to create compelling characters whose actions were always thoughtfully motivated by what viewers knew about them without having to tone down the shock caused by the incidents and their consequences. This made Sheriff Country’s action-heavy events go hand in hand with the character development of its protagonists, making Fire Country’s failings more noticeable because of how the two shows often overlapped.

The first responder drama’s problems didn’t begin with Stephanie Arcila and Billy Burke’s Fire Country exits, but losing two central characters at the same time inevitably contributed to Fire Country season 4’s lack of direction. Those losses impacted several characters simultaneously, and Fire Country season 4 not continuing to show how didn’t make the consequences of their exits magically disappear.

Fire Country season 5’s shorter run has the potential to break the firefighting drama because of how it can make its problems incredibly worse if they remain unfixed. Still, if season 5 resets the story by giving its original remaining characters a new direction and overcoming the problems that plagued the show throughout its run, Fire Country can have an exciting future, enhanced by its proliferating spinoffs.

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