Some Chi-Hards returning weekly to witness the heart-stopping exploits of the Firehouse 51 team on NBC’s “Chicago Fire” are apparently coming down with cliffhanger fatigue. The fact is, as a first responder action-drama, this sizzling NBC hit is almost always propelled by the ensemble cast confronting one life-or-death emergency or another. In the course of any one-hour episode, fans can expect to see their fave firefighters and paramedics risking their all to dowse skyscraper blazes, execute nail-biting rescues and generally be the heroes we’ve come to expect from this One Chicago-verse franchise.
But one other by-now-familiar element of “Chicago Fire” is the series’ penchant for putting characters into dire peril, only to leave fans holding their collective breath at an episode’s conclusion, often occurring at the fade out of a season finale or mid-season break. And the truth is, some viewers really dislike the extended suspense. Posting on Twitter, series’ fan @beckystellaride called out both “Chicago Fire” and CBS’s “Fire Country” on the issue, writing, “ok what is it with these fire shows and crazy cliffhangers!!!???” Also griping on Twitter, @HenryAppleBott1 complained, “These cliffhangers high key bore me.” And that’s just the starting point for fans lamenting the tendency of “Chicago Fire” to drive the action, and fans’ patience, right over the metaphorical cliff’s edge and then freeze-frame in mid-air until the next installment.
Chicago Fire fans are basically fed up with the whole cliffhanger thing
The fact is, the use of hair-raising, unresolved plot points has been employed to keep audiences hooked since the silent movie era. And, as it turns out, the writers and execs behind “Chicago Fire” are more than willing to leave fans guessing about whether a certain character has survived an episode-capping conflagration, explosion or other potentially disastrous event.
For instance, the Season 9 cliffhanger “No Survivors” episode ended with Taylor Kinney’s Kelly Severide trapped with others beneath an overturned boat during a water rescue. This prompted “Chicago Fire” buff u/orangemaroon25 to take to the show’s subreddit to say, “The final shot of the season was like the ambulance medics standing on the pier watching for someone to surface and nothing out there.” But they go on to note that when the next episode aired, Severide and his colleagues escaped unscathed within moments. “It really wasn’t a problem at all and that annoyed me.”
Also commenting on Reddit, u/_wonder_girl_said this particular dramatic device is “one of my biggest pet peeves of mine with this show. Any life threatening situation the characters are going through, they are fine and walking [away] the next.” “Chicago Fire” fan Mundane-Parsnip-7302 was also put off by the series’ over-reliance on cliffhangers, posting, “It’s really frustrating that they do this. I think it’s better to not have a serious injury if they just fast-forward past it.”