9-1-1: Nashville's Chris O'Donnell Shares The Advice He Got From Former Lone Star Captain Rob Lowe

Led by Chris O'Donnell as rodeo hotshot-turned-fire captain Don Hart, ABC's 9-1-1: Nashville (Thursday, 9/8c) is being publicized as 9-1-1 with a Southern twist. Of course, this isn't the first time the franchise has dipped south of Los Angeles.

Remember a little show called 9-1-1: Lone Star? TVLine remembers. And as fate would have it, O'Donnell is longtime friends with Rob Lowe, who headlined Fox's Texas-set 9-1-1 spinoff. Unsurprisingly, the actor formerly known as Owen Strand was happy to impart an incredibly Owen-coded nugget of wisdom on the franchise's newest captain: enjoy yourself.

"I got a little bit of feedback from [Lowe] as far as what to expect before I started," O'Donnell tells TVLine. "He loved it. He's like, 'I would have done that show forever.' He was really enjoying it and didn't want it to end, frankly. He just took real pleasure in it. He's like, 'We'd show up to these sets and these crazy emergencies, and we were the guys that got to save the day.' He's like, 'It was just amazing. That's not something I do in my real life.'"

(Though he hasn't had the pleasure of meeting original 9-1-1 captain Peter Krause, O'Donnell says he spent some time with the show's cast "doing some publicity things," and everyone he met was "super nice and and welcoming.")

9-1-1: Nashville appears to be carrying on the franchise's proud tradition of ludicrously over-the-top emergencies. "We've got firenados, we've got lightning, we've got all sorts of stuff," O'Donnell says. "There have been a couple of times where I've read a script and been like, 'They can't be serious here.'"

As revealed in the pilot, Don's personal life is also a bit of a firenado. O'Donnell shares the screen with Jessica Capshaw as Don's wife Blythe, whose wealthy upbringing was a stark contrast to Don's tumultuous childhood. Though Blythe's family fortune provides a good life for the Harts, Don finds himself "straddling a couple of different worlds," never wanting to lose sight of where he came from.

Don's life is further complicated by the unexpected arrival of Blue (Hunter McVey), the estranged son he conceived with a spitfire named Dixie (LeAnn Rimes) decades earlier. As we saw in the show's trailer, Blue is working as a stripper when he stumbles upon the scene of an accident and leaps — er, strips — into action, assisting Don's team like an actual first responder.

"It's really clever and funny" the way Blue is introduced, O'Donnell says, but that sentiment isn't shared by Don's other son Ryan (Michael Provost), whose "anger and shock is a lot to get over."

As if Don doesn't have enough on his plate, could a potential crossover with original-flavor 9-1-1 also be on the menu this season? "I would expect that they would want to do that at some point," O'Donnell says, though he's struggling to see the vision. "I kind of laughed thinking, well, I'm game for it. You just explain to me how the fire station in Nashville in California overlap together. But I'm sure if that's what they want to do, they will come up with a storyline that works." (And they have.)

OK, tell us: Are you planning to check out 9-1-1: Nashville when it premieres this week? Are you intrigued by the show's even-soapier approach to the world of first responders? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.