After last year’s drama with Chicago Justice being cancelled despite decent ratings, the NBC Chicago-verse has all been renewed for next season, with Chicagos Med, PD, and Fire joining SVU in 2018-2019.
The renewals come as no surprise given how strong the franchise is and how they’ve come to be the backbone of the NBC schedule. Some scuttlebutt in the trades suggested that Med could be vulnerable given NBC’s order of New Amsterdam, but the show has demonstrated too much value, and could hold more once it hits syndication, for the network to give it up just yet.
It will be interesting to see how NBC navigates another year of Chicago television. The trio have to be pleasing the affiliates with their 10:00 performance this year and they all respond well to having good lead-ins given how casual-friendly of a watch they are. However, NBC might want to, say, use This Is Us on a new show or be more aggressive Thursdays at 10:00, so while it would make the most sense to hold pat and rack up episode counts for each Chicago show, NBC might have something else on its mind.
Chicago Med airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on NBC, with PD holding down Wednesdays at 10:00 and Fire overachieving Thursdays at 10:00.
