Station 19 is gearing up to premiere its seventh and final season tonight and showrunners Zoanne Clack, MD, MPH and Peter Paige have tips for viewers that echo the passionate fans trying to save the show.
“They gotta watch,” Paige told Deadline during a recent chat when asked what else fans can do.
Added Clack, “I’m not sure they can do much more than they’ve been doing.”
Paige continued, “Yes, the USA Today advertisements and the Billboards in Times Square—but they still need to watch.”
Additionally, Clack said it would be helpful if fans would use social media to discuss the episode while the show is airing.
Fans behind the #SaveStation19 movement have gone all out trying to save the show since the cancelation was revealed in December. As Paige mentioned, the group put money behind billboards in New York’s Times Square and most recently this week in Hollywood, near the location where the series shot multiple seasons, along with ads to run across social media and more.
As Deadline reported in December, Boosted by frequent Grey’s Anatomy crossovers, over the last few seasons, Station 19 established itself as ABC’s No.2 drama series behind Grey’s. Over its run, the series also has been lauded for tackling important — and sometimes difficult — topics and recently received a Sentinel Award from Hollywood, Health & Society for its depiction of systemic racism in Season 6.
Before it signs off, Station 19 will hit the 100th episode mark in Season 7, which was impacted by the double Hollywood strikes. The series has aired 95 episodes to date; its seventh season will consist of 10 episodes.
Regarding what fans can expect in Season 7, Clack teased, “You can expect some exciting, amazing storytelling. [Laughs] Peter and I are very committed to continuing the inclusive storytelling that has been what Station 19 has done best and we are moving that forward. We’ve got a lot of action coming up but we’ve also got some smaller episodes on which we’re putting our fingerprint. We have some ebbs and flows to the season.”
She continued, “We hope that people take that in and really appreciate all the different storytelling. We know for a fact that our wonderful fans are loving these characters. So we wanted to take these characters on these kinds of different journeys, all within the firefighting realm, but opening it up a little bit more than we have in some past seasons.”