Could we be seeing more cast departures on the One Chicago shows and why? Negotiations for new seasons continue to happen at NBC.
One Chicago fans have so many things to love about the series and the best is the large ensemble casts. Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago PD all boast a bevy of great actors who will get the spotlight at times while also filling out a great drama.
Obviously, there have been a lot of cast departures over the years for all three shows. Still, fans were thrown by word that both Daniel Kyri (Darren Ritter) and Jake Lockett (Sam Carver) will not be returning to Chicago Fire when season 14 airs next year.
On top of that, Chicago Fire season 13 episode 18 (SPOILER alert) had Jack Damon (Michael Bradway) badly injured in a fire and the hint that his career may be over. There’s still a chance the character stays on, yet this could be a way to write him off, too.
Dropping three cast members may be shocking, yet according to a Deadline article on the departures, it’s for economic reasons, such as higher production costs. This leads to the question of whether this is the start of a cast purge of other One Chicago shows.
Why the One Chicago shows may be dropping cast members
The downside of a show with a large ensemble cast is that the budgets are automatically higher for salaries. That’s especially challenging for shows with higher production values. Chicago Med tends to be lower in budget, with almost all the action happening in the emergency room, while Fire and PD have a lot of stunt work involved.
This means it’s becoming more commonplace for Dick Wolf shows to not use the entire cast every episode. The FBI shows on CBS have become experts at it, with characters (especially on FBI: Most Wanted) absent in episodes with excuses ranging from a special assignment to a family emergency to vacation to just being sick. It’s a good way to save some money for the studio.
It has to be remembered that the networks are still dealing with the 2023 Hollywood strikes, which cost them billions in ad revenue. There is also the expectation that the current economic situation will escalate the cost of production across Hollywood. Throw in how every season has cast negotiations involving raises, and the networks are more into penny-pinching than in the past.
It’s a story as old as TV, as many a show in the past has had to cut costs in the most obvious way possible by dropping actors. It’s trickier for the One Chicago shows as you can’t have skeleton crews for firefighters or doctors, yet the worry remains.
How big could the One Chicago cuts be?
So far, Chicago Fire will be down two actors for sure and possibly a third. Cutting down more will be tricky as, again, you can’t have the squad with only four or five firefighters, but there might be less for the entire crew to do. It could also mean fewer high-budget emergencies.
Chicago Med might actually work any cuts into the storyline with the hospital forced to fire doctors to have enough money to keep running. The series has already touched on that and it could simply increase and add to the drama of an understaffed hospital handling more emergency situations.
Chicago PD is the smallest ensemble of the trio, so it might be safer. Yet also a possibility that either budget cuts or (more likely) political pressures force the Intelligence Unit to be whittled down to only four or five cops.
It could also be another old practice in television to drop the longer-running cast members who command high salaries and replace them with new actors whose contracts would be far lower. So it may be less a purge than saving cash by getting cheaper actors.
This may be a sad thing for fans and possibly hurt the shows with fewer characters. But television is, first and foremost, a business, and business means making hard choices when it comes to money. It’s still early to tell but these early departures may be the first sign that the One Chicago shows may be in for some cast departures that could be very unexpected.
One Chicago Wednesdays airs starting at 8/7c on NBC.