Why NBC Canceled Chicago Justice
Chicago is the third largest city in the United States. It is home to the country's fifth busiest airport, a great lake, six major professional sports teams, and the White Sox. It's famous for deep-dish pizza, loaded hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, and Old Style lager. There's a big shiny thing out front of the Art Institute. John Dillinger was shot dead on the street here.
Chicago is also notable for inspiring an NBC franchise of procedurals that tout the efficacy of its public services. The "One Chicago" universe kicked off in 2012 when Derek Haas and Michael Brandt created "Chicago Fire." Though the drama about the brave members of the city's fire department was not initially a ratings smash, it pulled in a sizable-enough audience for NBC to greenlight "Chicago P.D." two years later. Figuring you simply can't have too much Chicago in your lineup, the network launched "Chicago Med" the following year. All three shows are still on the air, and routinely rank in the top 20 of the Nielsen ratings. So you might be wondering why the fourth Windy City procedural, "Chicago Justice," only lasted one season.
Created by Dick Wolf, the series, which centered on the prosecutorial adventures of the Illinois State's Attorney office, boasted a solid core ensemble of Jon Seda, Philip Winchester, Carl Weathers, Joelle Carter, and 2025 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Monica Barbaro (who evidently has Tom Cruise to thank for her role in "A Complete Unknown"). Sounds like the kind of meat-and-potatoes procedural that television viewers eat up on the regular, no? While this is true, it also sounds like another Dick Wolf show that has been airing on NBC for a very long time, and that was a bit of a problem.
Chicago Justice was too similar to Law & Order
When Dick Wolf created "Law & Order" for NBC in 1990, he knew he had an ingenious formula with his bifurcated narrative that starts with a criminal investigation and concludes with the district attorney's office prosecuting the crime. It is highly unlikely, however, that he envisioned the series turning into a massive, multi-show franchise that would run for decades.
He was probably a little more confident in his instincts when he began spinning shows off of Haas and Brandt's "Chicago Fire," which might've led to a touch of overconfidence when he decided the city's prosecutors needed their own series. Though "Chicago Justice" debuted to reasonably strong numbers in March of 2017, by the end of its abbreviated 13-episode season the network decided it wasn't distinct enough to stand on its own.
According to NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt in an interview with Deadline, the trouble started when they were looking for a schedule home for the sci-fi series "Timeless." Finally, they looked at their weekly slate and questioned the need for a "One Chicago" series that scratched the same itch as "Law & Order." Per Greenblatt:
"It just became somewhat of a real estate issue and just looking at how many of these 'Chicago' shows we can sustain, we thought they are all good but it seemed like Justice was the most conventional, it was the closest to a 'Law & Order' show, so we thought maybe this is the one we should sacrifice. But it wasn't because the show wasn't good, it was really because [of] a lot of other factors."
Tellingly, Wolf hasn't attempted to expand "One Chicago" since — though the time is almost certainly right for a cuisine-centric procedural about the city's food inspectors titled "Chicago Beef."