It often feels like we just get into the swing of new episodes, and then there’s something that stalls it all. That’s certainly the case with Chicago PD, as we get some bad news about season 13.
NBC has announced the fall finale date, and it’s a lot sooner than we would like. On top of that, we don’t even know when the series will return in 2026, but we do have some sort of idea based on previous seasons.
Chicago PD season 13’s fall finale airs this week!
The disappointing update is that Chicago PD season 13 will air its fall finale on Wednesday, Nov. 12. This is a week earlier than most of us expected, as we’re used to the fall finale airing the Wednesday before Thanksgiving week. So we did expect to get at least one more episode in before the end of 2025.
There have been times that NBC has opted to take the week of Thanksgiving off and then air the next episode the first week of December, and that’s been the fall finale. However, that’s an annoying decision, and it wasn’t surprising last year when NBC went back to the original plan of the fall finale airing the week before Thanksgiving.
This is an earlier-than-expected decision for 2025. However, it could be linked to the fact that the Winter Olympics are coming in 2026.
When could Chicago PD season 13 return?
The good news is there will still be a good number of episodes to come in 2026. The fall finale marks the seventh hour of the season, and there will be 21 episodes to Chicago PD season 13. With that in mind, we’ll have 14 episodes to air, and we could see some strategic scheduling due to the Winter Games. After all, NBC will air the Winter Games between Feb. 6 and 22, 2026.
We’re expecting Chicago PD to return with new episodes on Wednesday, Jan. 7. We should get four weeks of uninterrupted episodes before the Olympics takes over the TV schedule. After that, the show should return toward the end of February or start of March to run through until May. It could help to reduce the on-off scheduling thanks to the sporting events taking up some airtime.
NBC isn’t often upfront about the full scheduling decision, so it is a case of wait and see when it comes to 2026.
Chicago PD season 13 is available to stream on Peacock to catch up on.
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