In Sheriff Country, Baccarin (pictured) plays straight-talking Sheriff Mickey Fox, the stepsister of Cal Fire's division chief Sharon Leone (Fire Country's Diane Farr), who investigates criminal activity while patrolling the streets of tiny Edgewater, all while battling her father, an ex-con artist, and a mysterious incident with her wayward daughter.
The (then) potential spinoff was introduced when Baccarin guest-starred on an episode of Fire Country in April. Like the series pilot, the episode was written by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan based on a story the Grey's Anatomy writers co-wrote with Fire Country protagonist Max Thieriot, whose real-life experiences inspired Fire Country. Thieriot also directed the created spin-off episode.
In the episode in question, entitled Alert the Sheriff, Mickey (Baccarin) ends up in Edgewater via helicopter; she chases a money launderer who ends up dumping $50,000 in cash on the convicts while they work in the woods. Viewers soon learn that not only is Mickey the stepsister of Sharon (Diane Farr), she also played an unfortunate role in putting Sharon's son Bode (Max Thieriot) behind bars before he joined the Cal Fire firefighting program.
“We are focused on mass-appeal franchises,” Cheeks said at the time. “This season’s number one show was Fire Country, which completely lends itself to building out a whole new universe… It became very clear that not only was the show special, it really felt like this could be a great example of us building together a franchise from scratch. And so I’m like, ‘you guys, congratulations, you got your back nine. Now let’s start talking about ideas for new extensions.’ They’ve already come up with some great ones.”
The first episode of Sheriff Country is written by Tony Phelan and Joan Rater with stories by Phelan, Rater and Max Thieriot. Executive producers are Thieriot, Phelan, Rater and Jerry Bruckheimer and KristieAnne Reed for JBTV. The series is produced by CBS Studios.
