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Man, that’s one godawful start to life for this poor baby. Born to a teenage mother who either didn’t know about it or doesn’t want anyone else to know, the baby immediately gets flushed down the loo. Pushed out of one pipe, just the very briefest experience of daylight, then sluiced straight down another one.
And the new one is the worst kind of pipe. The teenager lives in a Los Angeles tower block – we’re talking shared waste pipe here – so it’s not just the poor baby going down it but the raw sewage, too. And where will it end up? In an LA sewer, with rats and alligators, most probably pythons as well ….
But then the baby gets stuck, next to the apartment of a skater stoner, who doesn’t know whether the crying he’s hearing is coming from inside the wall or from inside his own fuzzy head. Luckily, he dials 9-1-1 anyway. Yes, it’s that kind of 9-1-1 (Sky Witness), not a terrorist attack on the other side of the country, or a Porsche. Hence the hyphens, I guess; no pythons but hyphens.
Anyway, quick! There’s a barely born baby stuck behind a wall. Things are on the verge of being grimmer as it is very nearly hacked to pieces because the LAFD show up and young firefighter Buck is about to go at the wall with his axe. Buck is a handsome fool, in the firefighting game to drive a big red fire truck and rescue pretty ladies. Luckily, fire chief Bobby is wiser and smarter, and decides that cutting around the baby would be a better approach.
Meanwhile, on the floors above, Athena (Angela Bassett; she gets named because I’ve heard of her) of the LAPD is rushing around banging on doors, telling people not to flush. She is a bit distracted, though, and has her own problems at home, because her husband of 20-odd years has just come out and she’s cross about that.
Back in the apartment, they’ve got the section of pipe – the one containing the baby – out of the wall now. Sure enough there is a little pair of feet down that end, and the top of the head at the other, but it’s stuck, how are they going to get it out? A ventouse, that’s obviously what’s needed; surely all fire crews should have one for just this kind of emergency? They haven’t got one, but wise chief Bobby has an idea: use the lube from the defibrillator, and that works. [Make a popping noise with your finger and your mouth] Out comes the baby, born again, what will they call her I wonder, Lubey Loo?
Sounds exciting? Well, it is quite exciting, I suppose, in a will-they-won’t-they-in-time? kind of way. What I am not getting is any kind of emotional human rapid response. We don’t know anything of the new mum to care much about her. It’s all about the emergency services personnel, Athena and Bobby and Buck; they’re shiny sure, but paper thin, cut from a glossy magazine and, to be honest, I don’t care much about them, either. Bobby has got a few demons in his locker, but they, too, are perfunctory: booze, God (born again perhaps?), a jumper who jumped after he failed to talk her down.
Phone operator Abby may be a little more interesting. She has no life at home – boyfriend left, mum’s got Alzheimer’s – so she gets emotionally involved with the people on the other end of the phone and their plights. But God, some of the dialogue sucks. “You know, it takes a certain kind of person to swim in the pain of the world and not get wet,” she says.
9-1-1 is an odd one. Created, along with Tim Minear, by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, who together gave birth to Glee, it shares some of that show’s pace and slick campness – but with sirens instead of singing, and minus the joy. To be honest, I’m not quite sure whether I am meant to be sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, or rolling around on the floor, laughing. And, in the end, I’m not really doing any of it. Or caring an awful lot.
The action comes thick and fast. There are more people to be rescued: a home-alone little girl, suddenly not alone when a pair of bad dudes break in. And here, at last, is a python, wrapped around a woman, slowly squeezing the life out of her. Buck the schmuck finally gets to wield his axe. Now, maybe do the same to the show?