The long-running drama will undergo some scheduling tweaks.
Chicago Fire has been holding down the fort on NBC for 13 seasons. The firefighting drama is a pillar of the network’s weekly programming, especially since the shows it helped spawn, Chicago Med and Chicago PD, fill out the rest of the primetime schedule on Wednesdays.
The One Chicago Wednesday lineup has mostly stayed the same, but January 2025 is going to bring about one notable tweak. Nothing massive, but definitely interesting given how little the time slots have changed for Chicago Fire over the years.
One Chicago will adjust its crossover lineup
As we’ve already discussed at length, One Chicago is planning their first crossover event since 2019. The three-part crossover will air January 29, and see Med, Fire and PD join forces save the victims of a harrowing high-rise fire.
One might assume that the scheduling for all three shows would stay the same, given that they already run consecutively on the network. That said, there will be some notable shifts on January 29 that fans should make a note of. Chicago Fire usually airs at 9/8 c on Wednesdays, but the evening of the crossover event will actually see the show air at 8/7c.
It’s minor, of course, being only an hour difference, but’s altered placement affects the rest of the One Chicago shows, as well as the time in which the larger crossover event starts. Chicago Med, which is the show that usually occupies the 8/7c slot, will move back and actually air at 9/8c on January 29.
OC will resume its normal lineup in February
In other words, Fire and Med are switching places. While the former typically serves as the kick off point for One Chicago Wednesdays, the writers and producers have decided to start the crossover event with Chicago Fire. Chicago PD, meanwhile, will stay put in its 10/9c time slot.
This is definitely a unique case, but it makes sense given the impetus for the plot. As was previously confirmed by NBC, the crossover event will deal with a fire in a high-rise building, so it would stand to reason that the firefighting team would be the first responders on the scene.
It makes sense, narratively, that they would kick things off, followed by the doctors on Chicago Med, and finally, the police officers on Chicago PD. It’ll be jarring, for sure, to start the evening with Fire, a show that has survived and thrived sandwiched in between its two spinoffs. Don’t worry, though, as the rest of the shows in January, and the foreseeable future, will follow the standard, Med, Fire, and PD format.
