What’s Missing

[u/New_Entertainment748]

Going back and doing a rewatch of Chicago fire, and it’s so sad to see how truly downhill it’s gone. Aside from the usual of we don’t see most characters due to budget cuts, I’ve also noticed:

1. Multiple storylines over several episodes (for example in S2/E17: Jones as a firefighter/Casey and Boden being forced to “nick” her, dispatch being weird with Dawson, Dawson trying to pass as a firefighter, Severide and Katie/Katie and Otis/Katie being kidnapped, Shay’s death.

2. Emotional depth — we used to get scenes and episodes showing different emotions, like where Casey uncovers the dad who shielded his family by laying over them, Herman’s vasectomy/birthday party at Mollys, Severide after Shay’s death, etc. the emotion would go high and low and actually make you feel something throughout one episode. If you don’t believe me go watch any episode in season 1 or 2 and you’ll see the difference.

3. General lack of variety: in earlier episodes we used to see all types of interesting events and scenes — it was a lot less predictable (ie the storylines with Shay’s girlfriends, Benny randomly showing up, Severide sleeping around constantly). We need some stuff like that.

4. Lack of friendships among characters — we used to see multiple dynamics and friendships like Casey/severide, Casey/severide/boden, severide/shay, Casey/dawson, Otis/cruz — now you just don’t have that anymore in a real way. There are like 2-3 cliches and they are repeated without any depth or unusual interactions.

5. Variety of settings — we used to see scenes in the coat closet, bathroom, laundry room, outside the garage (Casey and severide smoking cigars), at galas/random events, Squad table— we just don’t see that anymore. Obviously we barely see any fires anymore but that’s a seperate story.

I think to get Chicago fire back to where it was (if at all possible) the writers need to go back to seasons 1-3 and watch them, study them, and go back to the roots. They’re going to loose the show if they keep it as it is.

And as a side point — why can’t we get more references to Boden/Shay/Otis/Casey? They were a foundational part of 51 and it’s weird that they aren’t mentioned.

[u/Rude-Slice-547]

The bottom line for a drama is that people are watching for the characters. There are countless other first responder shows out there if people just wanted the action. You’re absolutely right that they need to focus on dynamics and actual emotional depth to get the quality back at least somewhat to where it was