Whoa! Chicago Med is about to enter its tenth season.
Chicago Med Season 9 ended with several cliffhangers that left viewers wondering whether one character was coming back.
This proved that there’s plenty of life in the series a year after Nick Gehlfuss’s (Will Halstead) exit.
Most of the cast is returning, so let’s look at who’s who ahead of Season 10.
Over Ten Years, How Much Has The Cast Changed?
Chicago Med’s cast is remarkably stable, so once you learn who the characters are, you should be able to follow not only the new season, but many of the previous seasons.
A few characters have left over the years, but there is always a core of five or six characters you can count on to carry the show, and Season 10 won’t be much different in that regard.
Even the recurring characters tend to stay year after year, most notably Sam Abrams, a neurosurgeon who pops up at least once a season with a smug attitude.
Please scroll down to check out all the major characters.
ED Chief Dean Archer (Steven Weber)
Archer has come a long way since he first appeared on Chicago Med Season 6.
He was initially a character fans either loved to hate or purely hated.
He was antagonistic to everyone, didn’t care about patient desires, and couldn’t stand anyone disagreeing with him.
He still has some of those tendencies.
He blamed Dr. Marcel for new resident Zola Ahmad ignoring protocol despite Marcel telling her firmly what the rules were, and when he had to use OR 2.0 the year before, he deliberately broke the machine.
His treatment of Zola was downright hypocritical, considering that he broke plenty of rules when he thought he had a good reason and once deliberately put a patient in a coma so he’d have an excuse to override the patient’s lack of consent for a procedure.
Still, Archer has displayed a softer side lately. His friendship with Hannah Asher straddles the line between platonic and romantic, and he’s tried to re-establish a relationship with his estranged son, Sean, who is a recovering addict.
Archer battled end-stage renal failure for a while, culminating in Sean giving him a kidney despite Archer’s ex-wife’s disapproval.
He is played by Steven Weber, who is best known for his role as Brian Hackett on Wings, though Weber has had a long career that began with doing commercials when he was in the third grade.
Weber has guest-starred on many shows, some of which allowed him to reunite with WIngs costars, and he has been involved in adaptations of four Stephen King stories.
He also was a close friend of the late John Ritter, whose son Tyler appeared on the Season 9 finale.
Ritter died of an undiagnosed aortic dissection.
In honor of his memory, Weber pushed for a Season 8 storyline involving a patient with a similar condition to feature a shoutout to the John Ritter Foundation For Aortic Health, which Ritter’s widow founded.
Dr. Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram)
Hannah Asher is the hospital’s OBGYN and is an expert in addiction recovery because she’s overcome opioid dependence.
Asher was initially introduced as a troubled doctor who was abusing heroin. Will Halstead met her at a safe needle program, and it was awkward when she then came into the hospital.
After leaving temporarily to go to rehab, Asher was rehired at Med and has been sober ever since. She’s portrayed as a caring doctor who takes ethics seriously but is unlucky in love.
She’s toed the line with Archer for a while, but during Season 9, she began dating new doctor Mitch Ripley, who was hesitant to start a relationship with her because of his past.
Jessy Schram has guest starred on many series, including several police procedurals such as CSI: Miami and Without a Trace.
You might also recognize her from four Once Upon a Time episodes, in which she played Cinderella/Ashley Boyd.
She is also frequently seen on Hallmark movies and was excited to appear in an episode of the new Fantasy Island in 2023.
Schram is also a singer, though this talent is not utilized on Chicago Med.
Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt)
Dr. Charles’ role as an Emergency Department psychiatrist makes him fairly unique.
Most medical dramas don’t focus on psychiatry (the only other series that did was New Amsterdam, but that ended up being silly and unrealistic by the end.)
Charles’ position has allowed Chicago Med to explore storylines that few medical dramas do. He has seen patients with conversion disorders, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and other mental health issues that are not as rare or shocking as those usually depicted on television.
Despite his expertise, Dr. Charles has challenges in his personal life, such as a teenage daughter from whom he has often been estranged.
He is also dating Liliana, a Polish immigrant who works as a janitor in the hospital and who often sides with her troublemaking brother, Pawel, over him.
Throughout Season 9, Charles grappled with guilt over the inhumane way he treated Ripley when Ripley was a teenager sentenced to a juvenile psychiatric facility after acting out.
That will likely continue during Season 10, especially now that Pawel has accused Ripley of beating him up.
Although Oliver Platt is a well-known actor, he comes from a political family.
His father was a career diplomat who served as US Ambassador to Pakistan, Zambia, and the Philippines, so Platt often moved around and changed schools.
Platt credits drama departments at various schools he attended for giving him some stability in his life.
Platt has had many roles over the years, but his experiences with politics helped him in two: his role on the West Wing and later on The Good Wife as a right-wing billionaire client who enjoyed sparring with Christine Baranski’s far more liberal character.
He enjoys playing characters vastly different from one another and is selective about the roles he takes, only pursuing ones that are interesting and different from what he’s done before.
