Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago PD to have 22-episode seasons
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As first reported via the Instagram account of one Eriq La Salle, there are going to be two more episodes added to the One Chicago episode order across the board. Is this exciting news? Absolutely, though we do also feel like many people out there probably assumed already that there were 22 episodes happening for each one of these shows. The initial order was actually for 20 episodes each, but that has now been officially bumped up.
It definitely does make sense to give all three of these shows 22 episodes, mostly if you are thinking from the vantage point of ratings alone. The One Chicago Wednesday lineup has turned out to be a rather-enormous hit over the course of the past couple of months, with the ratings proving to be incredibly steady from one to the next. There was a fear going into them that having all three of these shows on one night could turn out to be overkill, but that hasn’t actually happened at all.
As for the future beyond this season…
We have a rather hard time imagining that any of these shows are getting canceled just because of their consistent performance from one week to the next. Dick Wolf told us at One Chicago Day earlier this fall that he would like to keep these shows on the air as long as humanly possible, but that is really going to be up to how the ratings hold up and, beyond just that, whether or not everyone involved wants to keep making these shows.
One interesting component in all of this is probably syndication, which is the primary reason why we think Chicago PD has the most long-term potential. Of the three shows, it is the one with the best overall syndication deal. (With that being said, Chicago Med has not actually reached a point yet where it can be syndicated — we’ll have to see what happens there a little bit down the line.)
Chicago Fire interview – Check out our talk with Derek Haas all about the Chicago Fire midseason finale!
What do you think about all of these One Chicago shows getting a little bit of a larger episode order? Be sure to share right now in the comments! (Photo: NBC.)