Peter Krause Trades the Firehouse for the Secret Service in NBC’s Line of Fire

Peter Krause apparently decided he had been away from dangerous television jobs long enough.

After spending eight seasons as Bobby Nash on 9-1-1, Krause is heading back to network television this fall as the star of NBC’s Line of Fire. A recent promo for the new drama puts the Hollingsworth family front and center, and there is one major problem facing this particular family of overachievers: they have spent their careers protecting other people, but now somebody is coming after them.

Krause stars as Mike Hollingsworth, a Secret Service agent and the patriarch of a family whose idea of bringing work home takes on an entirely different meaning. His wife Jane, played by Succession alum Hope Davis, is a U.S. Marshal, while their children have careers spread across the FBI, Secret Service and Department of Justice.

Basically, Thanksgiving dinner must be exhausting.

The latest footage leans into the danger surrounding the Hollingsworths as their professional and personal worlds collide. A seemingly straightforward case develops into a deadly conspiracy, forcing a family accustomed to protecting civilians and politicians to turn those skills toward keeping each other alive. That means professional boundaries are going to get crossed, loyalties will be tested and following the rules may become considerably less important when someone they love is in danger.

Krause returning to another procedural so quickly after 9-1-1 will inevitably draw comparisons, but Line of Fire looks like it is giving him something different to play. Mike is still someone whose job revolves around protecting people, but this time the family itself is built directly into the premise. Instead of leaving the dangerous work behind when he gets home, Mike is surrounded by people who understand it because they are doing versions of the same thing themselves.

That family angle could also help Line of Fire stand apart in a television landscape that certainly does not have a shortage of procedurals. There are obvious shades of Blue Bloods in the idea of a multigenerational law enforcement family, while executive producer Jenna Bush Hager has described the series as having elements of family drama, mystery, romance and political intrigue.

Bush Hager also brings an unusual perspective to the project. As the daughter of former President George W. Bush, she grew up around Secret Service agents and has explained that those experiences helped inspire questions at the heart of the series. What happens to your own family when your career requires constantly putting the safety and needs of someone else's family first?

For Krause, the project offered enough to bring him back to this corner of television despite the inevitable 9-1-1 comparisons. The actor recently explained that he was drawn to Josh Safran’s script and the opportunity to explore the life of a Secret Service agent. The production has also worked with a former Secret Service agent as a consultant, giving Krause additional insight into a profession most viewers only see from the outside.

The rest of the Hollingsworth family includes Kat Cunning as Clare, Tommy O’Brien as Micah and Taylor Bloom as Russ, with Charlie Barnett also starring. Josh Safran, whose credits include Gossip Girl and Quantico, created the series and serves as an executive producer alongside Bush Hager and Ben Spector.

Whether Line of Fire becomes NBC’s next big procedural remains to be seen, but the ingredients are certainly there. Krause already knows his way around an ensemble drama, the family dynamic gives the weekly cases a personal hook, and an ongoing conspiracy means viewers should have something bigger to follow beyond whatever crisis arrives each week. Most importantly, the promo makes it clear that protecting the Hollingsworth family may prove considerably harder than protecting everyone else.

Line of Fire premieres Monday, September 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and streams the following day on Peacock.