And no, it’s never seeing the light of day.
9-1-1 is officially back from the mid-season break. In Episode 6, “There Goes the Groom,” Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Howard (Kenneth Choi) got married, but before that, some Buddie shenanigans unfolded. Chimney’s bachelor party turned wild as they overindulged on liquor, dancing, and Uber rides. The episode’s promo teased a karaoke scene with Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman), but it did not appear in the final cut that aired on Thursday. 9-1-1’s showrunner, Tim Minear, explained why the scene did not appear in the episode despite being used in the promo. He talked about balancing storytelling with time constraints on broadcast TV and how he had to sacrifice some scenes to tell a coherent story.
“So, for all the moaning I see about the karaoke song — yes, it was fun. The episode was too long, and I had to make a choice. At one point, I kept in the song but cut the scene after (the one you see below: “We can get an Uber!” It was one or the other. They both essentially did the same thing — a time cut to the boys trashed and carefree. In the end, the story moved forward with Buck suggesting they take the party to Chimney. The song was just fun and didn’t really do that. So the drunken plan to take the party to Chimney is the bit kept. The guys were hilarious in both.
Minear went on to add:
“A scene might be lovely on its own, but when I’m putting a cut together it’s about story telling and how things flow and ping off each other. Plus I only have 43 minutes. If I keep a minute here, I have to lose it there. I have no control over what the network promo department culls from raw footage to create a promo for an episode that isn’t finished. They don’t check with me, nor should they. They know what they are doing and are very good at it.”
Tim Minear Will Not Release Cut Scenes
Minear recalled another instance where a scene did not make it to the final episode, just like this one. When he was the showrunner of 9-1-1: Lone Star last season, he released some cut scenes that caused a barrage of anger from fans. He said he would like to avoid a reputation of the same this time around and won’t be releasing the karaoke scene, no matter how fun it was. He opened up about that, saying:
”Last year, I finished and released Lone Star scenes that were orphaned from the finale. Instead of people enjoying seeing those scenes, mostly they were furious they were cut. Without context, I understand that folks might not understand that. But the reaction was kind of nasty and I won’t be doing that again.”
Catch the remaining four episodes of the 10-episode season every Thursday at 8 PM on ABC. Stream past episodes on Hulu in the US.
