Spoilers ahead for the series premiere of The Floor on Fox.
When Rob Lowe returns to Fox early in a new year, it's usually to reprise his role as Owen Strand on 9-1-1: Lone Star. Due to the WGA writers strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike of 2023, however, fans of the 9-1-1 spinoff still have a while to wait before Owen arrives in the 2024 TV schedule. Lowe is back on Fox as host of new game show The Floor; now, after one episode, I have thoughts on the new series as well as what we know so far about Lone Star Season 5.
Rob Lowe Hosts The Floor
News broke back in September 2023 that Rob Lowe would bring The Floor to Fox as part of the midseason lineup in early 2024, and I have to admit that I had my doubts. The title of the show immediately made me think of The Wall on NBC and The Cube on TBS, and I'm not a huge fan of those compared to classic shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.
I'm glad I gave the premiere a shot, however, because The Floor reminds me more of a combination of Jeopardy and The Weakest Link than anything else. Any game show that has me yelling answers at my TV is a game show that works in my book! Rob Lowe is also a veteran host for Fox after hosting two seasons of Mental Samurai for the network.
Although Mental Samurai only lasted for a couple of seasons, we ranked it on our list of game shows to watch if you love Jeopardy, and it had the bad luck to delay Season 2 due to the COVID shutdowns across the entertainment industry. So far, I can say that I'm enjoying his return to hosting with The Floor.
The series premiere did leave me thinking about 9-1-1: Lone Star, and not just because this is usually the time of year when the drama returns. When a stuntman stepped up to compete on The Floor, Rob Lowe joked:
You're a stuntman, and you know, I'm looking for a new stuntman on 9-1-1: Lone Star. I play a fireman on Fox! But somehow I don't think this is gonna work.
The punchline of the joke was that while the stuntman contestant 100% looked like he could play a fireman in primetime television, he also looked nothing like Rob Lowe. After the contestant said he'd shave his beard, Lowe declared that they "are homies for life." While the rest of the contestants were laughing at the exchange, it set me thinking about the eventual return of Lone Star.
What About 9-1-1: Lone Star?
Season 4 of Lone Star ended with an intense finale that delivered some deaths and left big questions for Season 5 to answer. Unfortunately, viewers will have to wait quite a long time to see the aftermath of those twists. The fifth season is still happening, but it was pushed back to premiere in the fall of 2024 rather than early midseason as usual. 9-1-1 will be back much earlier with a cruise ship crisis, with its debut season on ABC kicking off in March.
We can hope that Fox will at least bring Lone Star back in early fall rather than late fall, but no matter what, we're presumably more than half a year away from a new episode. When promoting The Floor to USA Today, though, Rob Lowe took the time to reflect on what he loves about his scripted show. He said:
What I love about Lone Star is it's very Ryan Murphy (who executive produces). It's very much pushing the boundary of believability. But every rescue or call is based on something that happened. We featured a guy getting sucked up into a tornado while in a portable outhouse. You can see that video of the real thing on YouTube. So there's a lot of bizarre stuff out there. If it's happened, we're gonna find it.
Normally, I would suggest that maybe there's a shot of a Lone Star character popping up on 9-1-1 for an appearance sooner than fall 2024, but that seems much more unlikely nowadays than previous years. The original series was cancelled by Fox and then immediately picked up for Season 7 on ABC, whereas Lone Star remains on Fox. Crossovers across different networks aren't unprecedented, as NBC's One Chicago has shared a character with CBS' FBI, but I'm not going to cross my fingers too hard that it will happen with Lone Star and 9-1-1.
For now, Lone Star fans can always revisit the first four seasons streaming with a Hulu subscription and check out The Floor with Rob Lowe on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.
