After years of talk, it’s finally time for Fire Country to expand. As CBS’s 2025-2026 lineup kicks into high gear, we’re getting the series premiere of the aforementioned show’s spinoff, Sheriff Country. It’s been a long time coming, so when I spoke to this new series’s showrunner about joining the Fire Country family, I had to ask about the advice he got from Max Thieriot and the team behind the flagship series that’s now entering its fourth season.
We’re in the thick of fall TV premieres on the 2025 TV schedule, and Fire Country is no stranger to this season. However, its sister show, Sheriff Country, is brand new to this world. So, when I interviewed Matt Lopez about this new spinoff, I asked him if he got any advice from its predecessor’s co-creator and star, Max Thieriot, and its longtime showrunner, Tia Napolitano. In response, he was quick to gush about them, explaining:
They've been so supportive. I mean, Tia has been fantastic. We've been blessed in that our writers' room is located on the same studio lot as Fire Country. So, there's a well-worn path from my office to hers, and from hers to mine. And, you know, it can be a little tricky. We're shooting the show in two different cities, so that's a little bit of a Rubik's Cube. But in terms of advice, you know, I would say the best advice I got from both of them was just kind of like, ‘Tell your own story.’
In Sheriff Country, we’ll get to follow Morena Baccarin’s character, Mickey. She’s the current sheriff of Edgewater, and her series will be all about solving and fighting crime in a small town. In concept, that’s quite different from Fire Country. However, there’s heavy character overlap because it takes place in the same town and Mickey and Sharon, Bode’s mom and the Cal Fire Division Chief, are stepsisters.
That family lore was explained on Fire Country, and it set up Sheriff Country perfectly. It was clear they’d be connected but also distinctly different, and that plays right into the advice Napolitano and Thieriot gave Lopez as he started working on this new series, as he told me:
You know, ‘Tell your own tale. And don't feel beholden to what we're doing on Fire Country.’ We need to obviously be aware of it, and we need to – you know, we can't have things that literally conflict with stuff they're doing over there. But they were so supportive about ‘Let the show find its own voice.’ And that was wonderful. You know, to be given that license going in was really great.
Everything about this answer makes me happy. As Fire Country expands, I can’t wait to see how this new show connects back to it. However, the last thing I want is for said series to be the same. The fact that they are so intentionally riding that line means a lot.
Now, I can’t wait to see how Sheriff Country finds its own voice, tone and energy as it premieres this Friday on CBS. It’s clear that Lopez and co. have been hard at work creating a worthy successor to Fire Country, and I am so excited to see how it stands on its own and connects back to the flagship series.
To see the firefighters and law enforcement of Edgewater in action, you can catch the Season 4 premiere of Fire Country and the Season 1 premiere of Sheriff Country on Friday, October 17 at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET, respectively, and you can stream them the next day with a Paramount+ subscription.
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