20 of the most captivating TV shows about first responders

Although watching Rob Lowe put out fires and help save some of the community's most vulnerable people during 9-1-1: Lonestar can be moving, we tune in to this one for the drama that ensues in his personal life when he's not on the clock.

Let's be real—we can't have a list like this and not include TV's longest-running medical drama.

When 911, a show about Los Angeles' first responders (police, paramedics, dispatchers, and firefighters), first aired in 2018, I didn't think it would make it past Season 2. But here we are, seven seasons later, and it's still going strong. It stars phenomenal actors, including Angela Bassett and Peter Krause, and dramatic storylines like a plane going down, a catastrophic bus crash, and a massive tsunami hitting the Santa Monica pier.

This reality series is a staple for capturing the lives of first responders, specifically police officers. It features many intense situations, including narcotic sting operations, issuing search warrants, and explosive arrests.

The Chicago series includes several programs, including Fire, P.D., and Med. All of the programs focus on their respective departments in Chicago, Illinois, and have featured a collective 30-plus seasons and 650 television episodes.

Police Women was a refreshing reality series following only women as they balanced their work as police officers with their personal lives in different communities. The show ran from 2009 to 2013 and was filmed in Broward County, Maricopa County, Memphis, Dallas, and Cincinnati.

If you thought Grey's Anatomy was messy, wait until you get into Station 19. It's a spin-off of the medical drama, except this series follows the personal and professional lives of firefighters at the Seattle Fire Department.

The Night Shift is exactly what it sounds like — a medical program following the lives of those working nights. However, they quickly discover that their time on the clock is nothing like their counterparts. "Every shift is a fight between the heroic efforts of saving lives and the hard truths of running an underfunded hospital."

After a sudden divorce, Josh Nolan has a mid-life identity crisis and decides to start from scratch to figure out what it is he's really after. He joins the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department as the oldest rookie, and after fighting his way through training, his demeanor, perspective, and life experiences leave a lasting impact on those around him.

Niecy Nash is dynamic in the ABC spinoff, The Rookie: Feds. It follows her as a former guidance counselor who, at 48, fulfilled her lifelong dreams of working for the FBI. There are some intense moments, like car crashes, explosions, and unbelievable shootouts.

With all of the heavy storylines in the shows listed here, Sirens delivers a much-needed laugh for fans of this genre. The EMTs find themselves in some sticky situations — some of which are too much to list here — but if you really want to see for yourself, you can find this series available to stream on Prime, Hulu, and YouTube.

Bode Donovan made some bad decisions during his life in the CBS series Fire Country. After being sentenced to five years in prison, he gets a chance to turn it around, fighting fires in Northern California for a reduced sentence. However, things take a turn for the worse when he's stationed in his hometown, the place where everything went wrong in the first place.

Although Cops is the blueprint for a reality series of this nature, On Patrol: Live delivers the same heart-stopping, high-intensity traffic stops, stings, and busts that you know and love.

Tacoma FD isn't your average TV series about firefighters. These guys are always ready to combat the wildest fires but end up "tackling the less-glamorous elements of the job," like giving CPR to a dead cat.

Everybody remembers watching Meredith Grey discover she was sleeping with a married man during Season 1 of Grey's Anatomy. What's even messier is that the estranged wife, Dr. Addison Montgomery, got her own spinoff called Private Practice, which followed her personal and professional life after she relocated to Los Angeles. While working for this new practice, she was trying to save her marriage and the mistress who had a hand in tearing it apart.

Like Grey's, Scrubs is a medical classic. It follows several low-ranking interns at a California hospital who experience ups and downs. The saddest moments, including deaths and dramatic fallingouts, are like a scalpel to the heart.  

This ABC series gives us the chills every time. It follows Shaun Murphy, an autistic surgical resident who defies the limitations others place on him and proves he's more than capable of living on his own and saving lives.

Like the others on this list, The Resident explores the personal lives of staff members at Chastain Park Memorial Hospital. However, this program differs because it also focuses on the bureaucratic practices within the hospital industry. Some of the characters grapple with right, wrong, truth, and deception while dealing with the power that lies in their hands.

Christina Hawthorne (Jada Pinkett Smith) was the boss everybody wanted in the early 2000s series Hawthorne. As the Chief Operation Officer and President of James River Hospital, she fought hard for herself and her employees. In 2010, Smith won the NAACP Image Award for Oustanding Actress in a Drama Series.

The NBC series Mercy focused on three nurses, all with immensely intriguing stories. One had just returned from tour duty in Iraq. At the same time, another's complicated relationship with a police officer began taking center stage, and the last one, a recent nursing graduate, was thrown into the medical field, although skillfully underprepared.