We’ve got some good and bad news for One Chicago fans, and either way to slice it, it’s an unexpected development to say the least.
Heading into February, we knew that there would be a break of some sort coming for Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago PD due to NBC’s 2026 Winter Olympics coverage. As the broadcast home to coverage of the Olympics, NBC always turns over its entire primetime lineup to bring viewers coverage of the Olympics. In order to make room for the Olympics coverage, NBC has to pull its regularly scheduled programs from the lineup entirely which results in series like the One Chicago shows being shelved for several weeks.
It was of absolutely no surprise when NBC announced that the One Chicago shows would be going on break after their February 4 broadcasts, as a break was expected. This year, NBC even softened that blow by scheduling the 2026 One Chicago crossover event to occur in the first week the shows are back from break. This gave fans something to look forward to during the multi-week break in the schedule, and we had come to terms with not getting any new episodes until March 4.
The biggest mystery in looking ahead was whether NBC would air reruns of the One Chicago shows on the final Wednesday of the month. While we knew that the shows would be off the air on both February 11 and February 18 due to coverage of the Olympics, NBC had not confirmed the plans for the final Wednesday of the month which comes after the Olympics wrap up.
Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago PD fans had hoped that we’d get a night of One Chicago reruns on February 25, which would have made perfect sense. However, it seems NBC has a different plan and it’s one One Chicago fans are not going to like.
According to the newly released NBC primetime listings, NBC has opted to keep both Chicago Fire and Chicago Med off the schedule through the end of February. Instead of bringing fans a night of One Chicago reruns on February 25, NBC will instead be using the first two hours of the night which are typically occupied by Chicago Med and Chicago Fire, to air an encore presentation of The Voice season 29 premiere – an interesting move given that the premiere will have only just aired days before on Monday, February 23.
Even more interesting is that NBC is going to bring Chicago PD back into the mix, with an encore episode of the crime drama slated to air in the show’s usual 10 p.m. time slot on the calendar. This means Chicago PD will be the only One Chicago series to return to NBC’s schedule in February, with PD fans getting to enjoy an encore before the crossover the following week.
It’s definitely great news to know that we’re going to see Chicago PD back on the schedule before February ends, but it’s puzzling that NBC would rather re-air The Voice season 29 premiere just two days after its original airdate than to air reruns of the One Chicago shows together on Wednesday night. You’d have to imagine that any fan of The Voice who hadn’t watched the premiere on Monday would simply turn to Peacock at that point rather than watching it again on NBC.
Honestly, it feels like a major missed opportunity as NBC could have used that Wednesday night to get fans excited for the 2026 One Chicago crossover by rebroadcasting the 2025 “In the Trenches” crossover event on Wednesday night. That would have been a fun way to promote this year’s crossover and get fans hyped up for the event, even if it was a night of reruns rather than originals. Instead, we’ll have to wait until March 4 to see all three One Chicago shows back together again on NBC’s primetime schedule.