2025’s One Chicago Crossover Insults Its Best Show By Underusing Its Characters

The three One Chicago TV shows — Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Chicago Med — united in 2025’s “In the Trenches,” but the event felt like a crossover between only two of the series. The three-hour episode began with a gas explosion at a government building, resulting in the NBC franchise’s firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, and police officers coming together to save the day. They worked to rescue victims (including two beloved One Chicago characters trapped on a train) and investigate what caused the disaster.

The Chicago PD season 12 characters learned that disgruntled employees targeted the building’s pension fund, stealing a drive containing $250 million. One was a security guard/former cop, while the others included a burn victim and a train passenger. Before this discovery, Chicago Fire‘s Stella Kidd and Chicago PD‘s Adam Ruzek got stuck on a train underground. Kidd was trying to save the people inside and Ruzek was chasing a masked suspect when the tunnel collapsed. They were eventually rescued, meaning the 2025 crossover didn’t take any prominent One Chicago characters’ lives. However, it did ignore a significant portion of them.

Chicago Med Has Overtaken Chicago Fire As One Chicago’s Top-Rated Series

The Medical Drama Is Performing The Best Out Of All 3 Shows

Despite statistically being the best show in the One Chicago universe, Chicago Med‘s characters were severely mishandled in the 2025 crossover. According to TV Series Finale, the medical drama is outperforming Chicago Fire and Chicago PD during the 2024–2025 season. It’s averaging 5.783 million viewers per episode as of the writing of this article. Meanwhile, Chicago Fire‘s average viewership is 5.684 and Chicago PD‘s is 4.571, both down from the 2023–2024 TV season.