With plenty of time on their hands and more reason for a medical drama fixation than ever, many fans are undertaking a binge-watch of Chicago Med throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The beloved NBC drama is not the easiest to watch on-demand, however, with or without a cable subscription. There are a couple of ways to get access to the show, and more are on the way.
Chicago Med is an NBC sitcom inextricably tied to its network, as it shared a fictional universe with the other Dick Wolf-produced Chicago series. However, not even NBC’s dedicated streaming app or the network’s website has the first four seasons of the show at the time of this writing. Only Season 5 is available on NBC.com and Hulu. Producers are saving the rest for NBCUniversal’s upcoming streaming service Peacock, which launches in July.
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For Chicago Med fans, this leaves one option, buying or renting the series. The entire set of Chicago Med so far is available to buy or rent digitally by the episode or by the season on stores like Amazon Video, iTunes, Google Play or YouTube TV. While this may seem like a much more significant investment than a streaming service, for dedicated binge-watchers, it is often worth it to shell out for a show you love.
Fans also have the option or ordering Chicago Med on DVD, where it will be even safer from the changing landscape of the streaming industry. At the time of this writing, the DVD sets are available for just under $14 per season โ much cheaper than the digital copies.
Alternatively, Chicago Med fans may want to consider saving their binge-watch for July, when Peacock launches. The app will be available nationwide on July 15 and will be the first primary streaming service to offer a free subscription tier. For those that do not want to pay a monthly fee for Peacock, it will be similar to watching broadcast TV, with regular commercial breaks and some limits to what content is available and when.
Beyond that, subscribers can pay $10 per month for Peacock Premium, which will come with no ads and about twice as much content. When the regular TV season resumes, this will include next-day availability for currently-airing shows, which will mean that users no longer need to set their DVRs.
Peacock will have a vast library of TV shows and movies, including many fan-favorite NBC shows of the last few decades. After leaving Netflix, binge-watching favorites like Friends and The Office will migrate to Peacock, along with the entire Chicago franchise and many others.
As for Chicago Med, its Season 6 return date is still up in the air due to the coronavirus pandemic. Like the rest of Hollywood, production on the show has stopped until it is safe for actors and crews to return to film sets together.