NBC has given all One Chicago shows and Law & Order: SVU multi-season renewals. Here’s why they’re great for Chicago PD and Law & Order fans.
We knew Chicago PD was going to be safe, but we didn’t know how safe. And now we find out that Law & Order: SVU is safe, too. NBC has renewed both TV crime dramas for three seasons.
Yes, you read that right. Three seasons! That means, we have both shows (and also Chicago Fire and Chicago Med) through to the 2022-2023 season.
This is excellent news for fans, and not for the obvious reason. We love that the show is going to be on our screens for longer, but it’s excellent news for those who feel like networks don’t care if we’re invested in the characters or the stories. With a three-season renewal for both shows, we can get comfortable with the shows, feel committed to watching each week knowing that we’re not going to be suddenly cast aside.
And in the words of Scream: “But wait…there’s more!”
Early enough renewal to pre-write episodes
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There’s a potential writer’s strike coming up. Nothing is set in stone yet, but there’s a lot of contract negotiations happening right now with the WGA, and right now, nobody seems to be budging. I won’t bore you with those details, but the multi-season renewal comes early enough to help counter a potential strike.
If a strike happens, the writers aren’t allowed to work on projects. That means no new episodes of Chicago PD, Law & Order: SVU, and more can be written during that time.
So pre-writing as much as possible is going to be essential to keep problems with a strike as minimal as possible. If you remember TV shows during the 2008 writer’s strike, you’ll remember that shows went off the air for an extended hiatus. Networks had no idea what to really do to fill the time, opting for reruns and having to turn to reality shows to fill the gap.
There was a fear that networks haven’t been bothered about a potential strike this time. After all, reality shows are proving more popular than scripted shows at the moment. Just look at the successes of The Bachelor and The Masked Singer. However, NBC is proving that it’s dedicated to fans of its best-performing and longest-running scripted shows.
The seasons during the writer’s strike year were also cut. By pre-writing plenty of content, it means there will be more scripts to film and less chance of the seasons being cut short should a strike happen.
Multi-season story arcs
When writing a novel or writing a TV series for fun, it’s possible to just plan out a multi-book or multi-season arc. We can enjoy hinting at storylines in the first season that wouldn’t play out until the fifth season. Some shows will risk it to run multi-season storylines (the early years of Supernatural, for example), but most won’t. They run a story arc for the one season.
Chicago PD and co. can now think about multi-season arcs. They can arrange for guest stars who will recur in multiple episodes but not necessarily in the same season. This isn’t necessarily going to be all that easy considering filming schedules, but it’s something the writers could consider.
This makes storylines stronger. It gives us something to get invested in and gives us something to speculate about throughout the years. Plus, we don’t have the fear of the shows being canceled and the writers not having the time to tell the full story.
Better story planning
Even if the storylines didn’t cover multiple seasons, the multi-season renewals still allow for better planning. This is especially when it comes to crossovers or for season finales.
It allows the shows to give us a cliffhanger at the end of the season but know that we’ll get answers. There’s no need to wonder if one of the One Chicago shows will be canceled before the others, making the crossovers trickier to tackle in future seasons. And crossovers are hard enough to manage as they are!
The only thing that could become a problem is actor contracts. With the multi-season renewals, it’s likely that the shows will offer actors multi-season contract renewals too. So far, we’re still waiting on hearing if all will sign on, including Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order: SVU, but there is a lot of hope with this news.
Chicago PD and Law & Order: SVU‘s renewals, as well as Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, come at the same time as Dick Wolf renews his deal with Universal TV for five more years. That means we don’t have to worry too much about the three shows ending in three years time, either. As long as the shows are performing well, there’s no need to say goodbye.
What do you think of the three-season renewal news? Are your excited for more Chicago PD and Law & Order: SVU? Let us know in the comments below.
Chicago PD airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC. Law & Order: SVU airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.