Fire Country Fans Fed Up with Lazy Writing After Eve's Accident
The CBS series Fire Country has not been on the air that long, but it has already managed to garner negative reviews from both critics and viewers.
Despite a strong storyline that is relevant in today's universally traumatizing wildfire environment, the show seems to only devalue the tragedy and drama that firefighters have to deal with.
Fire Country tells the story of young convict Bode Donovan, played by Max Theriot, who volunteers to fight massive fires in the forests of Northern California. The plot sounds fascinating, of course, but one scene was the last straw for fans' patience.
We are talking about the moment in episode 15 when firefighter Eve Edwards (Jules Latimer) tries to escape from a tree falling on her.
Instead of running perpendicular to the tree (how unprofessional!), she runs parallel to it. The result is obvious: the tree pins her down, but her colleagues manage to save her. Sure, over-romanticizing can be harmful even in the case of brave firefighters, but it is even more harmful when it gives viewers a bad example of what to do in the event of a forest fire.
But as we can see, the issues of writing do not end there.
"Wouldn't they have had saws with them to maybe cut the tree away downhill from Eve to remove that weight? No rope to tie off the fallen tree to other trees to keep it from sliding?" Reddit user count_strahd_z wonders.
The moment of saving Eve was really quite ridiculous.
Many also resented how rushed the show seems, with characters easily written out, devaluing their storylines:
"One second Rebecca is coding in the woods literally next second she's in surgery with a ruptured spleen, few seconds later she's dead," Redditor WolfHawk360 says.
Fans were also unhappy with the final episode, which blamed the prisoners for setting the forest on fire. Stigmatization never leads to the rehabilitation of the stigmatized:
"FYI 1 out of every 3 people in the US have a criminal record. 95% in prison are released. This show perpetuating the stereotypes of caged animals is insulting," Redditor jamaicahereicome1975 explains.
All in all, at this point, the script seems not only weak, but harmful. And while shows like this are supposed to educate, Fire Country only exploits the disaster and the plight of Cal Fire employees and volunteers.