Does anyone besides me wish they would re-make the old TV series Emergency! as a modern TV show?
Don't get me wrong, I love Rescue Me, and liked Thrid Watch, but I can't watch them with my kids. I think if Emergency was remade with today's firefighters, EMTs and Paramedics are the basis, a more family-friendly yet realistic, action-packed and inspiring show could be produced.
If it was done well, I'm sure every firefighter in the Country would want their family to watch, and inspire the next generation of Firefighters and Medics.
Times change, and what was cutting-edge in the 1970's is kind of Hokie by today's standards. I think there's still enough of us Fans of Roy & Johnnie out there who would like to see it remade with modern cameras, good scripts and realistic firefighting action.
Check out my website. www.rjhaig.com Iretired out of Detroit in 1992. The book I wrote,Fire Horses, has the heart and spirit of the men I served with in the pages of that novel
HELL YES ! MY WIFE GOT ME LAST CHRISTMAS SEASON 1&2 MY BIRTHDAY 3. IT BRINGS BACK MEMORYS .WE DIDN,T HAVE BUNKER GEAR TIL 1987 MY OLD DEPT GOT THE TEL AND PADDLES TIL 1977 .IT SEEMS THAT THE WEST COAST WAS ABOUT 5 YEARS AHEAD OF THE EAST AT THAT TIME. ALSO THE FIRST ENG 51 WAS A CROWN AND THEN AMERICAN LA FRANCE AND LAST WAS A WARD LA FRANCE. THE SQUAD A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO CAME THROUGH ON THE WAY TO THE SMITHSONIAN AND THEY DID A GREAT JOB REFURBISHING IT.
Permalink Reply by Mike on December 31, 2007 at 1:43pm
OK... so send your ideas for shows to mike324@firefighternation.com
Where should the show take place? LA, NYC, Baltimore, Bunkie Louisiana...
Characters... another hot child of Dixie... DeSoto's kid.
New EMS stuff... ambulances that perform care... not just grab bodies and run. Maybe some CPR spots for the lay-person.
Lots of new EMS shots, realistic enough for viewers to get the idea, but tame enough for family viewing. An appropriate amount of firefighting scenes, everything from false alarms to 5-alarm tire store fires...and everything in between. Realistic house fires, including roof work, interior attack and exposure protection...all using modern firefighting equipment and tools, and all using real firefighting jargon (i.e. size-up, exposures, C side, B side, MAYDAY, etc....).
I'm not a big fan of making the children of the previuos shows main characters as main characters in the re-make. I do think it's realistic for Roy and/or John's kids to be in the Fire Service somewhere, but what are the odds of them being in the same platoon at the same house? Maybe a few well-timed cameos from Randy Mantooth as Battalion Chief (Ret.), or as a chief Officer of one of the smaller FDs in Southern Calififornia, like Moncltclair, or Rancho Cucamonga, or Santa Barbara maybe... Maybe His kid (daughter?) is a FF in the LACo, but maybe in LA City FD, and we see her whenever Mutual Aid comes into the picture (did you ever notice in The Original Series "TOS" is was ALWAYS LA Co. FD, and they never had assistance from any of the other FDs in the county? At the time there were more than a dozen other FDs in LA County, inlcuding LA City, City if Industry (near the REAL Station was located) and a bunch of others. Consolidation could actually play a part in the new series as well....
While we do have family legacies in the Fire Service, I think it would turn-off many viewers to constantly try to relate characters and stories to the previous series. The new nursing staff should be all-new, the doctors all new (odds are their kids are orthodontists in Paradise Valley, Arizona, or in jail anyway...). I think it would be best to introduce two new main characters, and base the series in large part on actual calls from LA County. Perhaps start working the series by reviewing reports of actual incidents in LA County and foreshadowing the series with a documentary sries similar to The Battalion.
Of course it should be set in LA County! If it wasn't it should be called something else, but people should persue that idea as well (There's a FD that covers just about everytown in America and they all have stories which could be told). Personally, I love FFing stories from all over, but FDNY has it's own limelight right now (with Thrid Watch and Rescue Me both being about the FDNY) and Balitmore had Ladder 49, this show needs to tell the story of L.A. Fire Fighters... BTW I loved The Battalion (about the SFFD in San Francisco), but I deffinately think if this show is going to be called Emergency! it needs to come home to LA County.
Well put, Greenman! I think too many shows depuict firefighting simply as battling a three-alarm blaze on every call, which is why emergency was so great. I remember one show where the squad responded to a call where a woman got her toe stuck in the bathtub faucet! THAT'S what happens in real life. Not every call is a working structure fire. One possibility for a new version, may be having Johnny Gage or Roy DeSoto having become chief. Or at least a battalion chief. Ande they have to find a role for Chet!
Thank you for saying it. I have emergency seasons one through three on Dvd and my family and I watch them over dinner. We can't watch network TV or Fox News or O'Reilly anymore because everything is too coarse or racy. I watched Rescue Me at my job - half an episode once and had to leave the room. It's way too racy and I can't believe it's not on HBO or something. There's something pure about Emergency (kind of hammy but realistic). Something that real firefighters understand. Something that those of us who joined to serve believe in. I would watch it every night it was on if they didn't change it around - however, they wouldn't put it on network TV. Maybe we could get them to put it on RFD TV which is one station we do watch. God Bless and follow Jesus in the new year!!
I think it would be awesome if they re-did Emergency!, whether as a movie or tv show. Better yet, a movie that leads i to a tv series. Yeah, it would be cool to see some of the old guys, but it would have to focus on new people with updated equipment, techniques, etc. I've watche Rescue Me & Third Watch, got sick of both. I understand the need for ratiings & stuff, but come on. If you do a show about firefighting, keep the sex, drugs & drinking out or to a minimum. Yeah, we ain't perfect, but I don't go around talking to dead people & relatives. Maybe we should start a petition to Universal to do that. If they can redo Bionic Woman, they can do Emergency! By the way, yeah, I though Dixie was hot, too! God, I'm really showing my age now!
Permalink Reply by Mike on January 1, 2008 at 8:29pm
OK... so maybe four separate calls per episode. I am thinking one medical, one structure, one public assist and possibly a wildland fire. An engine and a squad in the fire station... and would an ambulance in the fire station be realistic? It is not here in Montana... but Cali maybe. It has been 10 years since I lived there. 4 calls too much? Need some local jargon... what does a dispatch sound like. I really want to show EMS and fire working together on an extrication... maybe fire starting in command then passing it to EMS after extrication... or EMS in command from start to finish. Unified command? Go small with the structure fire for the first epidode... room and contents fire in a single story structure. Really want to get out a public service message to the general public about get out and stay out and maybe some basic info useful to the fire department when you call 911. Some smokey the bear wildland fire prevention stuff... and some win the hearts and minds with a very professional lift assist on an overweight patient. I would like to write the show to be one-hour. Would someone like to write the structure fire and wildland fire scenes? I have started with a motor vehicle accident scene that I will post here for review.
If we stay with the same station as TOS, it's currently staffed with an Engine Company and a Ladder Company, but the Engine/Squad combo probaly works best for the show. "Station 51" is really Station 127 of LA Co FD... I haven't lived in L.A. since 1989 when I joined the Army so local jargon and dispatches are somehting I would need to reasearch before I could give any meaningful input.
I think the four calls pr episode is a good basic formula, but it doe sneed to very some too, depending on the specific calls. Save the wildland FF for a special show of its own each season. Think of the webispode of The Battalion where SFFD sent a Task Force to L.A. To assist in Wildland firefighting (they mainly were tasked with structure protection).
Absolutely have to show EMS working hand-in-hand with FD, but also show calls where both L.A. City and L.A. county are dispatched and work seemlessly together, or where L.A. Co and Beverly Hills FD both work the same MVA, or fire.
Realsitic 911 calls when the incident happens would help alot too....I like the idea of a Public Assitantance call every episode too...People don't realize how often we help people out of the tub, or off the floor, and sometimes out the window to go to the hospital or just a doctor's visit. That might even get some of the message about the morbidly obese out to the public as well.
I liked the way TOS basically had Station 51 running calls all over the County as though all those areas were in one station's response area...basic 51 was "any firestation."
Sometimes the show could focus on training and could have some good hand-held sequences showing burn house training, RIT training, etc...
Deffinately an emphasis on professionalism, and diversity. There are women on the rigs now, firefighters of every ethicity and religion and that should be reflected as much as possible. Same with the Hospital Staff...a Muslim Doctor, male nurses and PAs (there were no PAs when the original series was out), and some realsitic E.R. sequences as well (almost like E.R. got spliced onto the end of a Emergency! MVA sceen).