Beyond Chicago Fire season 6, how long can series last?

Is Chicago Fire season 6 going to be the beginning of the end for the NBC series? We don’t think so, but we’re getting near a time to ask questions.

Anytime that a show ventures near season 6 or season 7, there are questions that need to be asked. Most actors upon joining a show sign contracts for six or seven years, and while the ratings for the show are solid, it’s moving to a new timeslot separate from This Is Us and The Voice, and it also isn’t getting the syndication money that some other long-running shows are at the moment. It’s fair to start asking some questions as to if the metaphorical fire can keep burning — we’re talking her almost a warm, comforting fire in a fireplace, and not so much the one that’s put Casey, Mouch, and some other characters in jeopardy.

What we’re confident in for now is that we’re going to make it to a season 7. The fan support behind the show is still there, the writers still have ideas for stories, and the franchise, even with losing Chicago Justice, is still going strong. The biggest concern story-wise may just be that there is more competition from streaming shows every year, and a show like Chicago Fire has the feel of a soap in that you often have to watch many seasons to understand the full breadth of the story being told. You invest in these characters over time, and while there are effective story-of-the-week plots, you miss something if you don’t know the characters.

What we worry about is that the specific timeslot that the show’s moving to (Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern) is long known as a trouble spot for NBC. They haven’t had a real hit there since ER went off the air, and while The Blacklist survived being there fore a season, its spin-off was also canceled in the same year.

The biggest reason not to worry

So long as ratings stay over a 1.0 in the demo (and its far ahead of that), we have a tough time imagining Chicago Fire going anywhere. The larger concern should be retaining the cast beyond the next couple of seasons, and hopefully the producers will — and if not, hopefully they’ll have the advance knowledge so that they can write some fitting exits for the characters. We do think that the One Chicago franchise is bigger than any one character, and that’s always been a mantra. We’ll see if that turns out to be true when Chicago PD premieres a little bit later this fall without Sophia Bush for the first time. (We suppose that it’s possible Chicago Fire could be losing Jesse Spencer courtesy of where Casey is at the moment, but we’re not too worried about him for now.)

How long do you want to see Chicago Fire stick around?

Let us know right now in the comments! We’ll of course have more episodes coming leading up to the show’s premiere.

Meanwhile, head over to this link in the event you do want to get some further updates on the series and its short-term future. (Photo: NBC.)