On set with Chicago Med season 5: EPs tease crossover challenges

Tomorrow on Chicago PD, Chicago Med, and Chicago Fire, it’s finally here — the big One Chicago crossover event! This will mark an opportunity to see all three of these shows take on an ambitious case, one that really starts out with a medical condition: A deadly virus that could send the entirety of Chicago into chaos. The doctors of Med are going to be on tilt trying to find a way to deal with the crisis; meanwhile, the police department will be looking for answers as to how to ensure justice is served.

For some video insight on the crossover and so much more, be sure to watch what we have below! After you check that out, remember to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for some other updates and view our full One Chicago playlist.

So how did the story this time even come together? Speaking to CarterMatt while at One Chicago Day, Chicago Med executive producer Diane Frolov noted that “Dick [Wolf] and Derek [Haas] wrote the outline for the three shows,” which then lead to each individual creative team getting the task of trying to make the story work. Fellow EP Andrew Schneider then took us through the challenges of working within a framework of all three shows, even though they specialize only in one:

“Our job was to take this very big story and ground it in medicine and our characters. All three shows are very particular to what their characters do and how they react emotionally. If we write a scene with a Fire character, we’ll say ‘is this right? Is this reaction correct?’ — or, we’ll ask for assistance in writing an interrogation scene.

“This [crossover] was basically like ‘here is this medical story, which is out there.’ Our job was to make it our show. That being said, it’s really one big episode. It’s really like a movie. It’s really seamless transition with all of the shows.”

Frolov adds that through the creative process, “here’s a lot of communication among all the three shows” to keep everything together and proper. This crossover was a huge challenge to do — it required long weekend shoots plus a number of public locations. It’s the most ambitious in some ways that the One Chicago team has ever done, and that meant actors being pushed to the limit and writers/directors finding new ways to present their stories.

Be prepared for some beloved characters to be in danger — after all, that’s what stars Jesse Lee Soffer and Tracy Spiridakos noted recently.

What are you the most excited to see with the upcoming One Chicago crossover?

Be sure to share right now in the comments, and remember to also stick around to ensure you don’t miss any other news. (Photo: NBC.)