CBS has ordered its first new series for the 2025-26 broadcast season. The network has given a green light to Fire Country spinoff Sheriff Country, headlined by Morena Baccarin. The series order was announced Thursday during CBS’ presentation in Los Angeles.In Sheriff Country, Baccarin stars as straight-shooting sheriff Mickey Fox, the stepsister of Cal Fire’s division chief Sharon Leone (Diane Farr of Fire Country), who 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.The (then) potential spinoff was introduced when Baccarin guest starred in an April episode of the mothership series. Like the series’ pilot, the episode was written by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan from a story the Grey’s Anatomy alums co-wrote with series’ star Max Thieriot, whose real-life experiences inspired Fire Country. Thieriot also directed the planted spinoff episode.In the April episode “Alert the Sheriff,” Mickey (Baccarin) enters the scene in Edgewater via helicopter; she’s in pursuit of a money launderer who ends up dumping $50,000 in cash over the convicts while they while they’re working in the woods. Viewers quickly learn that Mickey is not only the step-sister of Sharon (Diane Farr), she also played an unfortunate role in putting Sharon’s son Bode (Max Thieriot) behind bars before he joined the Cal Fire firefighting program.CBS’ decision to go ahead with a Fire Country spinoff is not surprising, given the fact that the drama ranked as the most watched new broadcast series last season, averaging 8 million viewers per episode, 10 million in live+35 multi-platform viewing. And CBS President and CEO George Cheeks hinted at the possibility of a Fire Country spinoff during a conversation with Deadline’s Peter White last June at the Banff World Media Festival.“We are focused on mass-appeal franchises,” Cheeks said at the time. “This season’s number one show was Fire Country, which completely lends itself to building out a whole new universe… It became very clear that not only was the show special, it really felt like this could be a great example of us building together a franchise from scratch. And so I’m like, ‘you guys, congratulations, you got your back nine. Now let’s start talking about ideas for new extensions.’ They’ve already come up with some great ones.”The Sheriff Country initial episode is written by Tony Phelan and Joan Rater with story by Phelan, Rater and Max Thieriot. Executive producers are Thieriot, Phelan, Rater, and Jerry Bruckheimer and KristieAnne Reed for JBTV. The series is produced by CBS Studios.
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