One Chicago made a splash on January 8. All three shows returned for their winter premieres, and proved they hadn't lost a step. If anything, the franchise is gaining momentum as it gears up for its anticipated crossover event. The only problem is, the shows were pulled from NBC's Wednesday lineup on January 15.
NBC prioritized President Joe Biden's farewell speech, which ran for 15 minutes on Wednesday evening. It wasn't a huge chunk of time, but it was long enough to cause NBC to pull all three One Chicago shows and push them back a week. Such is the downside of having three shows that are connected. The network doesn't want to air two thirds of the franchise, and run the risk of leaving titles out.
One Chicago crossover is still set for January 29
This decision frustrated some fans and confused some others. The big talking point coming out of the Wednesday delay, though is what the delay will do to the One Chicago crossover event that's set for the end of the month. A delay of one week could have a massive trickle down effect in terms of what episodes air on which day, so it is a valid concern.
The good news is that nothing seems to have been changed with regard to the crossover event. According to NBC, the three part event will still be taking place on Wednesday, January 29. This means one of two things were going to take place. Either a break was being planned for one of the weeks between January 15 and now, or there were episodes planned for every week of January, in which case one batch of them will be pushed back until after the crossover event.
NBC has not altered its January schedule
It may seem strange to air One Chicago episodes out of order, but such is the risk of network TV. Episode releases have been altered to accommodate for things like speeches or special holiday events. We will see one such scheduling tweak on January 29, in fact. Chicago Med usually airs before Fire, but the narrative structure of the crossover has made it so that Chicago Fire will kick things off before it hands the reins over to Med.
Of course, NBC made a last minute change to its lineup with the January 15 cancelation, so it's possible it could decide to push back the crossover event at a later date. As it stands, however, we are on track to enjoy our first crossover in six years this month.