NBC is coming off the purge of 2025 when six scripted series — dramas Found, The Irrational, Grosse Pointe Garden Society and Suits L.A. and comedies Night Court and Lopez vs. Lopez — were canceled ahead of NBA’s arrival to the network’s primetime last fall. NBC added two new comedy series with shorter orders for 2025-26, Stumble and The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and no new dramas.
A year later, NBC is not in a scripted contraction mode anymore, as evidenced by its recent orders of eight pilots, five dramas and three comedies.
While the situation may be different, some things are exactly the same as last year, like the network kicking things off with early renewals for comedies Happy’s Place and St. Denis Medical, which were both picked up for third seasons earlier this month.
In another repeat of 2025, Dick Wolf’s five NBC series — Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order — all look poised for renewal.
One Chicago and SVU have never been in doubt as they remain consistently strong across linear on NBC and streaming on Peacock. There had been questions early on about the revival of the mothership Law & Order, which had been lagging behind the other four in the ratings while also becoming a cast revolving door. But not this year. Coming off its strongest showing on Peacock last season, Law & Order has largely caught up with the rest of the Wolf Entertainment pack in linear too, with a solid 2025-26 season to date that has made the case for renewal.
Like has been the case in recent years, the pickups again are expected to come with budget trims. Navigating those, Wolf Entertainment, which produces the Chicago and Law & Order series with Universal Television, in 2023 introduced minimum guarantees reductions as a cost-saving measure, with cast members — especially long-tenured ones — not appearing in every episode. The practice has now been adopted by other veteran series, with the number of episodes actors are guaranteed to appear in creeping down every year. Cast departures also have become part of reality for long-running broadcast shows as they try to secure a renewal every year by meeting their new budget targets.
Beyond the Wolf five, NBC has two other current drama series, sophomores The Hunting Party and Brilliant Minds.
Both are on the bubble, with The Hunting Party considered the stronger of the two. That is a shift in the balance from last summer when NBC opted to keep the medical drama starring Zachary Quinto on the fall schedule while pushing the crime procedural starring Melissa Roxburgh to midseason, raising questions about its future.
It is now Brilliant Minds whose future is in serious doubt. It is NBC’s lowest rated drama series on linear with the steepest double-digit year-to-year declines despite having the same post-Voice Monday time slot as last season. In another sign that Brilliant Minds is facing a likely cancellation, the Warner Bros. TV-produced series was recently pulled from the schedule to make room for two-hour Voice episodes on Monday, with the remaining six episodes likely to air after NBC has made the bulk of its renewal decisions for 2026-27.
The Hunting Party is just above Brilliant Minds as the second lowest rated drama series on NBC in linear. It has been stable on NBC and has charted on Peacock, keeping it in contention but not off the bubble. Something else could potentially make that happen. The thriller has suddenly become a surprise breakout hit on Netflix, with its first season consistently ranking in the Daily Top 3 in the U.S. since launching on the platform a week ago. A halo effect over the ongoing second season on NBC and Peacock is possible, improving the renewal prospects for the Universal TV-produced series.
Chris Meloni on ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’
Virginia Sherwood / Peacock
There is one other drama, which is now NBC-adjacent after originating on the network, Law & Order: Organized Crime. The series starring SVU alum Chris Meloni became a Peacock original for its most recent fifth season which got a second window on NBC in the fall, delivering respectable linear viewership as part of the Law & Order-branded Thursday lineup.
Organized Crime has done OK on Peacock too but has had a hard time keeping a creative team in place with five showrunners in as many seasons. The series, whose Season 5 finale was released on the NBCU streamer more than seven months ago, is not very active at the moment, but I hear there is a soft outreach for a showrunner. If it’s successful, the series has a chance of renewal.
On the comedy side, it’s too early for The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, which debuts tonight following a January preview. But very much on the bubble is NBC’s other freshman comedy Stumble, the network’s lowest-rated scripted series overall this season. Not all of it was the show’s doing.
NBC may have fumbled the series’ scheduling by putting the single-camera cheerleading mockumentary on Fridays behind Reba McEntire’s multi-camera sitcom Happy’s Place.
On the bright side, Stumble, which has scored well with both critics and viewers (82% and 94%, respectively, on Rotten Tomatoes) and I hear came in under budget, has its own strong cheerleading contingent at NBC where the comedy enjoys strong internal support. It has resulted in a couple of scheduling moves designed to get the show in front of more people.
That has included Stumble reruns behind the similar in the style and tone single-camera mocumentary St. Denis Medical on Mondays and a special airing behind NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage this past Friday.
It is unclear whether the efforts would ultimately pay off but they are giving Stumble a lifeline.
Its fate will likely be a down-to-the-wire decision informed by the strength of NBC’s three comedy pilots. The large number of drama pilots, five, raises some concerns for NBC’s current drama slate. Sources indicate that two new drama series orders are likely but, if more pilots come in strong, they could potentially be accommodated without deeper cancellation cuts via shorter, 10-episode seasons or summer runs. A move to Peacock for a show executives feel strongly about, despite being out of NBC slots, also is a possibility.