The Chicago Med Spin-Off That Fans Would Love To See
NBC's "One Chicago" universe is held up by three pillars: "Chicago Fire," "Chicago P.D.," and "Chicago Med." As their titles suggest, each series revolves around a particular emergency service in the city of Chicago, Illinois. In a manner similar to many of its fellow major network TV franchises — "NCIS," for example — the three shows that comprise "One Chicago" frequently cross over with one another. Furthermore, every year NBC celebrates its Chicago-verse with an online fan event called "One Chicago Day," which the network streams for free and remains available through the "One Chicago" YouTube channel.
While "One Chicago Day" and the numerous crossover episodes between various permutations of its three core series seem to keep the viewership of "One Chicago" plenty engaged, a number of fans online and even one cast member have suggested some additional ways to expand the franchise's scope. "Chicago Fire" actor Charlie Barnett, for example, once proposed a spinoff in which his character Peter Mills starts up a new firehouse in Puerto Rico — an idea that proved divisive among the "Chicago Fire" fanbase.
More recently, one user online shared an idea for a "Chicago Med" spinoff that turned out to be somewhat popular among viewers of the series.
Some fans want a show about Chicago Med staff members when they were younger
User peachesfromjupiter proposed an idea for a "Chicago Med" spinoff on the official series subreddit in a thread titled, "Hear me out, a spinoff featuring dr. Charles, Goodwin etc when they were young." In it, they outlined a show chronicling the lives of some of the older doctors on "Chicago Med" when they first entered into the medical profession. In response, a number of fans either shared their enthusiasm for the idea or built out how such a series might function.
For example, user nerddddd42 replied, "I know it would never actually happen but it'd be awesome to see. You could have Dr. Charles' generation as the residents and attendings, with Sharon in Maggie's position, then have Latham as a student and Maggie as a trainee nurse." User itstimegeez, meanwhile, wrote, "Ooh yeah and bring in a young Dr Downey too."
"Chicago Med," notably, takes place in the present, and even recently featured a storyline about the COVID-19 pandemic. "It was something that we had to incorporate, being a contemporary medical show," executive producer Andrew Schneider told One Chicago Center. Theoretically, then, a prequel could tackle other real-life public health scares from decades past.
That said, one hallmark of "One Chicago" shows is the ability to cross over with one another, so a flashback series standing on its own may well be the biggest obstacle in the way of making such an idea a reality.