A “Bee-nado” Descends on LA in New ‘9-1-1’ Season 8 Teaser
9-1-1 Season 8 is less than a month away and promises to be a good one. As is tradition with the series, new seasons feature a multi-episode emergency arc. While announcing the premiere date for the upcoming season, a bee-related emergency was teased. A new video unveils the emergency’s full scale and tees up the danger. The new nightmare for Los Angeles is small yet big at the same time. A swarm of bees descends on the city, and the outcome will not be sweet.
Reportedly titled “Bee-Nado,” the new video confirms that the opening emergency will be bee-related. How many bee stings can one person survive? That’s not handy information, but the teaser begins with a factoid. Apparently, the average human cannot survive 500 bee stings. The bee featured in the video leaves the bright flower it was on and joins the swarm. The number of bees is countless, but the swarm is giant. That’s easily thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of bees.
‘9-1-1’ Does ‘The Swarm’
Season-opening emergencies are usually inspired by a disaster movie showrunner Tim Minear has seen. The Poseidon Adventure by director Irwin Allen inspired Season 7. He was known as the Master of Disaster owing to his extensive filmography of disaster-driven movies. Among those is 1978’s The Swarm. In the film, scientists and a military task force try to prevent a swarm of killer bees from invading Texas and causing mass casualties. Minear had previously talked to The Wrap about his admiration for Allen’s work.
“Irwin Allen’s disaster movies are what I’m often referencing when I do these two- and three-part natural disasters. We joke that I’m the Irwin Allen of network TV,” Minear told the publication. The Allen Estate cleared The Poseidon Adventure to be used in Season 7, so they should be okay with more homages from Minear. It is safe to assume that when the emergency unfolds, it will follow a similar format to The Swarm but with that 9-1-1 charm. While the 118 tries to prevent a disaster from befalling the city, an opportunity to explore the characters’ lives will also present itself.
9-1-1 Season 8 is currently in production. The series stars Peter Krause as Bobby Nash, Angela Bassett as Athena Grant, Aisha Hinds as Henrietta Wilson, Kenneth Choi as Howard Han, and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Maddie Buckley, Ryan Guzman as Eddie Diaz, and Oliver Stark as Evan ”Buck” Buckley. Recurring cast members include Gavin McHugh as Christopher Diaz, Bryan Safi as Josh Russo, Declan Pratt as Denny Wilson, Tracie Thoms as Karen Wilson, and Lou Ferrigno Jr. as Tommy Kinnard.
Bee-Nado flies on ABC on Thursday, September 26, at 8 P.M. Watch past seasons on Hulu.
