'One Chicago' Crossover 2019: Which of 'Chicago Med', 'Chicago Fire' and 'Chicago P.D.' had the best-written episode?
The annual 'One Chicago' crossover event aired this week and it lived up to the promise of being the biggest 'Chicago' crossover yet. The premise was built upon an idea from Executive Producer Dick Wolf, while Derek Haas worked on the outline for the story for all the three shows. Haas wrote the episode for 'Chicago Fire', while Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider wrote for 'Chicago Med', and Rick Eid wrote for 'Chicago P.D.'.
Because the overall outline was written by Haas, there was uniformity in terms of the story through the three episodes but in some places, the writing was crisper due to different writers being involved across the three episodes. While 'Chicago Fire' featured all characters more or less uniformly, 'Chicago Med' and 'Chicago P.D.' saw some characters getting more air time than others.
This difference was more prominent in 'Chicago Med' where Dr. Will Halstead and Dr. Crockett Marcel got a bulk of the scenes — the former in working with other people to find a cure for the virulent strain of flesh-eating bacteria, while the latter worked non-stop to treat the patients. We also got quite a few scenes featuring April Sexton, Sharon Goodwin, and Dr. Daniel Charles. Maggie was sent home early on by Sharon so that her lowered immunity (courtesy of the chemotherapy treatment for her cancer) wouldn't put her at risk and we got barely anything with Dr. Ethan Choi who is easily the most efficient doctor on the show.
It was a bit more evened out on 'Chicago P.D.', though Detectives Jay Halstead and Hailey Upton featured heavily. Jay led the hunt for the culprit right from the first hour, while Upton could have been infected due to her exposure to another victim. We did, however, see the whole team working together evenly, including Adam Ruzek, Kevin Atwater, Kim Burgess, and newbie Vanessa Rojas. Even Sergeant Trudy Platt was given more scenes than Dr. Ethan Choi in 'Chicago Med.
Obviously, it's not an easy thing to write a single-flowing story across three episodes that feature a whopping 93 characters, and the writers have done a commendable job in writing what were three tense episodes that had viewers on the edge of their seats. But, it's worth mentioning that Haas's treatment of the story for 'Chicago Fire' didn't single out a single hero, while the other two shows did -- and that deserves a little more appreciation.
'Chicago Med', 'Chicago Fire', and 'Chicago P.D.' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights.