The future is bright for FBI on CBS following its renewal for another three seasons and strong ongoing sixth season in the 2024 TV schedule, but change is already coming to the show for Season 7. Showrunner Rick Eid is stepping down from the top job on CBS’ hit series. That doesn’t mean he’s stepping away from the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe, though. Read on for what’s happening and what it could mean for hypothetical crossovers between the FBIs and the Law & Order shows on NBC!
FBI’s Big Change For Season 7
Rick Eid, who has also written a number of FBI episodes, is departing the drama as showrunner after the sixth season, although Deadline reports that he’ll stay on board as an executive producer. While it remains to be seen if there’s a notable change to the stories when FBI returns for Season 7, his departure is a pretty big deal. Eid has worked as the series’ showrunner since the very beginning in 2018.
Of course, showrunner changes aren’t exactly uncommon in the Dick Wolf TV universe, even if this is the first for FBI. Both FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International have had more than one person filling that role of the years, with International even recruiting Chicago Fire‘s Derek Haas over from NBC before a former Chicago P.D. executive producer stepped in for Season 3.
And Eid leaving FBI‘s showrunner role doesn’t mean he’s leaving the same position on Law & Order, which naturally led me – as a viewer of all nine Wolf shows – to consider what this means for a potential crossover between FBI and Law & Order.
What About Law & Order Crossover?
Rick Eid joined Law & Order as showrunner for its revival back in 2021, which proved to be enough of a success that it – along with Law & Order: SVU, but not Organized Crime at the time of writing – has been renewed for the 2024-2025 TV season already. He’ll remain as showrunner for the long-running NBC series, meaning that he stays within the Wolf world but presumably has more time to focus on Law & Order instead of splitting his time for FBI as well.
So, why am I speculating about crossovers here, when there have been no direct ties between any of the FBIs and Law & Orders so far? Well, thanks to an FBI episode from early 2020, all nine shows of the Wolf universe are connected, albeit tangentially. The crossover of One Chicago’s Tracy Spiridakos as Detective Hailey Upton happened when Rick Eid was showrunner of both FBI and Chicago P.D., which undoubtedly made it more straightforward for Spiridakos to visit his other show and partner with Zeeko Zaki’s OA for an episode.
With One Chicago already crossing over with SVU years earlier, Upton’s FBI appearance meant that Maggie and Co. officially exist in the same world as the Law & Order teams. When Rick Eid was showrunner of both FBI and L&O, it was much easier for me at least to speculate about the two shows sharing characters across networks, since he’d done it when he had the top job of P.D. and FBI. Such a TV event now feels much less feasible now for me.
Of course, there were complications to a hypothetical FBI/Law & Order event even when Rick Eid was showrunner on both. For one, Jeremy Sisto was a series regular on Law & Order for three seasons before landing the role of Jubal Valentine on CBS, and Law & Order: Organized Crime cast an actress in Season 3 who was quite memorably killed off FBI.
