The Chicago franchise will return with a major crossover event spanning ‘Chicago Med,’ ‘Chicago Fire’ and ‘Chicago P.D.’
Key Points
- The One Chicago shows are on hiatus due to NBC’s 2026 Winter Olympics coverage.
- The series return March 4 with a major three-show crossover event involving a plane crash crisis.
- Fan-favorites Jesse Lee Soffer and Tracy Spiridakos reprise their roles for this crossover storyline.
Fans of the trio of One Chicago shows—Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D.—may be concerned to see that new episodes won’t return to NBC for several weeks.
Following the Wednesday, Feb. 4, episodes, it was revealed that the Dick Wolf dramas would be taking a month-long hiatus.
Why did the shows get pulled from the lineup? There’s actually a good reason, and it’s not a concerning one at all, though a little upsetting if you like getting your weekly dose of Windy City action.
Why Are the One Chicago Shows on a Month-Long Break?
New episodes of Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D won’t be on for the rest of the month due to a scheduling conflict with the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The Winter Olympics will run from Feb. 6 through Feb. 22, meaning many of the shows have to be taken off air to accommodate the coverage as it broadcasts on NBC.
A handful of the events will take place during primetime as well, including the Opening Ceremony on Friday, Feb. 6.
The Closing Ceremony will conclude the Olympics on Sunday, Feb. 22, but the One Chicago shows won’t be back that week, returning the following week instead.
One Chicago Will Return After the Winter Olympics With a Crossover Event
The Chicago dramas will return on Wed., March 4, and while that may be a long time for fans, it will also be worth the wait as the comeback will feature a three-show crossover event.
The mini-hiatus allows anticipation to build up for the huge TV moment.
And it may just be the network’s most ambitious crossover event yet, not to mention it will bring back fan-favorite stars, Jesse Lee Soffer and Tracy Spiridakos, in a guest capacity to reprise their roles as Jay Halstead and Hailey Upton, respectively.
The most recent three-show crossover event aired on January 29, 2025, centering on a gas-leak explosion beneath the city streets that wreaked havoc and required the combined expertise of Fire to contain the threat, Med to treat the injured, and the CPD to investigate who was responsible. It marked the first full crossover in six years, following the previous Infection event, which aired on Oct. 16, 2019.
And now, on March 4, 2026, the Chicago franchise will deal with a plane crash crisis, once again requiring all hands on deck.
For the crossover, Med and Fire will be swapping time slots temporarily for storyline purposes. Fire will air first at 8 p.m. ET, with Med taking the 9 p.m. ET time slot and P.D. concluding the event at 10 p.m. ET.
Why Jay Halstead and Hailey Upton Are Back
Seeing the team back together for the first time since Soffer and Spiridakos exited the series isn’t just exciting to fans, as Marina Squerciati, who plays Kim Burgess, shared her joy in an Instagram post with the two stars.
“Upsteadgess’s BACK! The trio you’ve been waiting for. It was so hard keeping our date night a secret, but now the secret’s out!” she captioned the photo.
So what brings these two back into the mix?
Per Deadline, Spiridakos’ Upton returns on the “federal level” as a “Special Agent of the FBI.”
“She joins her former P.D. allies after a drug enforcement task force case out of her Detroit field office leads her back to Chicago,” the outlet revealed.
As for Soffer, whose character, Jay Halstead, left for an Army job in Bolivia, he is now working deep undercover, “which leads him on a path to the same case that Upton is investigating.”
The crossover synopsis reads: Firehouse 51 is called to an airfield when a passenger jet suddenly goes silent mid-air, triggering a high-stakes emergency. Their discovery cracks open a bigger and deadlier mystery — one with consequences that could ripple far beyond the runway and put countless lives in jeopardy.
