There’s good news for emergency personnel and those in need of them (in fictional situations, that is): Deadline reports that NBC has just renewed Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. This will make a fifth season for the Fire squad, and a fourth for its brothers in blue over at the P.D. The shows have a significant head-start on the third member of the first-responder trinity, Chicago Med, which has had a little trouble in development. But the hospital drama is officially premiering next week, so we guess most of those issues have been ironed out.
The renewals were announced Monday night at a premiere party for Chicago Med, which stars S. Epatha Merkerson as the chief administrator of Chicago Memorial. (If she’s the Dr. Cuddy, we think that means Oliver Platt is the House). The show marks Merkerson’s return to Wolf Films-drama territory, as she played Lt. Anita Van Buren for 17 years on Law & Order. Naturally, talk of a Law & Order revival—which has already been bandied about—came up in the room that held a veteran cast member and Dick Wolf, the creator of the franchise.
Wolf repeated what he’d said before about a 10-episode limited run that would bring back several key players, including Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy (who’d probably be a retired District Attorney by now, but here’s hoping). The producer’s still hungry for more crossovers among the Law & Order and Chicago shows, even though he admitted “everybody hates [them] except for me.” But he’ll keep pushing because “it’s kind of like Dickens’ London. The characters can move back and forth effortlessly.” That is, as long as they’re chasing fugitives (or fires) across state lines.