If the name Dick Wolf sounds familiar, don’t be surprised, he’s been working in the crime genre of television at just about every major production company since the mid-1980s, starting with Miami Vice at NBC. You may know him for his more recent work, Law & Order: SVU or his most recent work FBI, which premiered just last year. And with as wide a library of work as he has amassed, he is now looking for his next challenge, a cross-network crossover.
According to Variety, the characters of CBS’s FBI, which is about to get a spinoff show FBI: Most Wanted, share a universe with the characters of Law & Order: SVU or one of his NBC Chicago-verse shows (Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med). Speaking to reporters at the Monte Carlo TV Festival on Saturday regarding which show will crossover into the other, Wolf says, “[it] depends on which story wins.”
Wolf claims credit for the ‘cross-network crossover’ idea, if not the execution. Wolf says, “CBS and NBC both want to do it, whether they can figure it out is above my pay grade.” The story would not be hard to imagine as the FBI frequently collaborates with different and local law enforcement agencies, one example of this would be on their Innocent Images (child pornography) unit. However, Wolf’s claim at originality is a bit eager in the uptake.
The A.V. Club reports that cross-network crossovers are a relatively common practice, with the most recent one happening in 2016 with CW’s The Flash and Supergirl (which was at CBS at the time). Fox frequently collaborates with other networks, Fox’s Ally McBeal had multiple crossovers with ABC’s The Practice; of course, now both shows are owned by the same parent company. Many real-life and fictional icons have entered the world of Fox’s The Simpsons, including Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, from the show of the same name.
Law & Order: SVU‘s season 21 premiere will be Thursday September 26, 2019 on NBC. FBI will air its season 2 premiere on Tuesday September 24, 2019 on CBS. FBI: Most Wanted has not announced an official premiere date.