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Chicago Fire Season 12 is officially happening, and now we’re getting ready for it. Just how many episodes will there be?

We are more than ready to see Firehouse 51 back in action for another season. Of course, we’ll have to wait until fall 2023 for it to start, but at least we know Chicago Fire Season 12 is happening. NBC brought the good news along with a renewal of all six current Dick Wolf shows on the network.

The big question for many is how long we’ll get to see the characters this time. The season orders haven’t been consistent since the pandemic, and now there are other problems that are causing changes to the episode counts.

Chicago Fire Season 12 episode count

There won’t going to be the usual 22 episodes to the season. Deadline reports that we’ll get between 18 and 20 episodes instead.

This is to save money. Linear ratings are dropping, and the broadcast networks need to find a way to cut the costs of productions down. Last year, we saw NBC remove a couple of main characters from a few shows to achieve that although it led to some negative reviews from audiences. This time, the network is opting to reduce the episode counts.

Even more bad news is that we won’t see all the characters in every episode. We’ll see some of them disappear now and then, a little like the way Stella Kidd and Sylvie Brett have disappeared in the past. This is all going to be planned out, and not an abrupt departure like Taylor Kinney’s recent exit from the show—there is still no word on whether he will definitely be part of Chicago Fire Season 12.

While the pay per episode for the actors will stay the same, their total compensation for the season will drop as they’re not in each episode.

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Chicago Fire* airs Wednesdays on NBC in the U.S. and on CityTV in Canada.