NBC's Line of Fire is set to fuse two rarely-mixed TV formats into one show
NBC's Line of Fire is set to fuse two rarely-mixed TV formats into one show
Ravikumar N Tue, August 11, 2026 at 10:26 AM UTC
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A still from Line of Fire premiere ©Instagram/@nbc
NBC's upcoming series Line of Fire is slowly shaping up to be one of the network's most exciting projects. The drama follows a family of law enforcement agents, which uncovers a deadly conspiracy. Actors like Peter Krause, Tommy O'Brien, Kat Cunning, Hope Davis, and Taylor Bloom headline the series.
This week, showrunner Josh Safran and the rest of the cast and crew of the show sat down for an interview in which they hyped up the show. But the highlight of this interview was Safran revealing that Line of Fire would mix both episodic and serialized.
What did NBC's Line of Fire showrunner Josh Safran say?
Safran revealed that the upcoming series would be a mix of both episodic and serialized formats. For those who don't know, "episodic format" means that an episode is mostly self-contained. Rarely are events from the previous episode referenced in the next one in episodic formats. However, a serialized format means that the plot will unfold over the entire series, and events from one episode will be referenced in the others, for example, Game of Thrones.
Safran teased this about Line of Fire:
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“As I said earlier, I’m kind of drawn to sort of the throwback. All the shows that I binge are the type that I hope this is. You can watch an episode and feel like you saw a story, a beginning, middle, and end, but there still is stuff that will drive you to the next episode. So I’d say 80/20, sometimes 90/10, sometimes more."
He continued:
"Think The West Wing, The Good Wife. On The Good Wife, they’d solve a case, the case would be over, but the emotions would still be with the characters. I’d say we carry that over. And then of course there is a conspiracy element that continues.”
Then, Safran further added that episodes would be mostly self-contained:
“There will be some episodes that are dialed up, but most of the time you’re gonna follow a case every week. You’re gonna see one or more of these family members solve a case every week. That’s very important to all of us, including me. I’ve been very excited to do a procedural forever.”
What do Josh Safran's words mean for Line of Fire?
Still from the NBC series | Image Via: Instagram/@nbc
The upcoming NBC series is not the first time that a network TV show consists of both episodic and serialized episodes. CW's DC shows famously were a mix of serialized and episodic episodes. Therefore, it is not surprising that the episodes of the show will be self-contained. Given that it is a network TV series, it is bound to have a lot of episodic entries.
Episodic entries could provide an insight into the Hollingsworth family's dynamics. The official logline of the series already teased that the Hollingsworths are a family of law enforcement agents, with family working for the Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, Department of Justice, and FBI. The episodic entries could show how the family members resolve their differences arising from their respective professions.
Line of Fire airs on NBC from September 21, 2026, at 10:00 PM ET/07:00 PM PT.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
