Fox recently premiered a new action drama titled “9-1-1” featuring first responders from police, fire and paramedics as well as a 911 operator. It is set in Los Angeles. The series is created and produced by Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy who are most known for creating “American Horror Story”.

It features an ensemble cast and of course we get to see much of their family life and troubles in addition to the action of their day-to-day job. Angela Bassett plays police officer Athena Grant with a troubled marriage because her husband Michael just came out of the closet as gay. We get to see him reveal this fact to their 2 teenage children. He is played by Rockmond Dunbar who you may recall from the last few seasons of Sons of Anarchy where he played Police Lt. Eli Roosevelt or as “C-note” from Prison Break.

We also have Connie Britton as 911 operator Abby Clark. She struggles as a 42-year-old single woman who has to care for her mother with Alzheimer’s in her off-hours. She’s also frustrated by the fact that most of the time she never figures out how one of her calls turns out because once the police and/or fire arrive, they usually hang up on her.

Finally we have Peter Krause who plays fire Capt. Bobby Nash. Most recently he was seen as con man Christopher Hall in ABC’s “The Catch” (which I really miss). However he has better noun as Adam Braverman from “Parenthood“. Bobby has been back on the force only 18 months after being suspended for alcohol and drug use. His substance abuse he credits to the stress of the job. He goes to confession once a week to confess is drug and alcohol abuse even though he’s sober. He is also struggling to mentor a hotshot rookie firefighter who can’t keep his pants zipped and often gets it on with the women that he rescues.

For the most part it’s just your ordinary police, fire, paramedic drama with all of their emotional baggage of their family life thrown in. But there’s something appealing about this particular show that I can’t quite put my finger on. Minor spoilers here from the pilot episode.

The first few emergencies we see include a woman who jumps off a building and dies despite Bobby trying to talk her down. Someone flushes a newborn baby down the toilet and they have to cut a hole in the apartment wall beneath there to get the infant out of the drainpipe. We get a woman who is nearly strangled to death by her pet snake. But the most exciting sequence is a 10-year-old girl who is home alone while her mom went out to get fast food and burglars broke in. She hides in the bedroom while 911 operator Abby tries to figure out her location. A bit of plot driven technology in that the girl’s smart phone doesn’t have GPS (highly unlikely these days). The girl has recently moved into the house and doesn’t know her own address. They have to try to locate her without tipping off the intruders. It ends up turning into a harrowing hostage situation.

Something about the way each of these sequences is portrayed makes it for very compelling viewing. Normally I’m a little bit cynical about action shows that spend too much time dealing with people’s day-to-day lives (cough SEAL Team on CBS). But for some reason these stories don’t seem to get in the way. They actually help humanize and fill out what could otherwise be cliché stereotype characters.

I don’t watch Chicago Fire or Chicago PD so this may seem a little bit derivative of those. But overall I think it has lots of potential. It reminds me a lot of the old 1972 paramedic action drama “Emergency!” which I really enjoyed. For now I’m giving it a rating of “I’m watching it”. If your TV schedule isn’t already to full you might want to check it out.