NBC Airing Royal Wedding Special Instead of ‘Chicago P.D.’ Wednesday Night

NBC is getting viewers ready for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s big day, on Chicago P.D.‘s timeslot.

The network will be airing Inside the Royal Wedding: Harry and Meghan at 10 p.m. ET after a brand new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

The special, hosted by Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, provides a look into the romance of Harry and Markle, which includes discussions with the couple’s closest friends, along with interviews from popular figures from sports, fashion and show business.

The couple is set to wed at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19 in front of friends and family, including a few thousand members of the public who will be allowed into the grounds of the castle during the ceremony.

Chicago P.D. wrapped up its fifth season on May 9 with a shocking finale that saw the death of fan-favorite police detective Alvin Olinsky Elias Koteas).

After the episode, P.D. showrunner Rick Eid revealed the death had to happen in order to move the story forward.

“It just evolved from a story telling perspective. Once we started down the road of Woods (Mykelti Williamson) and Voight (Jason Beghe) going at each other, Bingham’s body being recovered and Olinsky’s DNA being found on that body, we started playing it out to its creative, dramatic conclusion, it just felt like an interesting way to wrap up that storyline,” Eid says. “I think the real creative idea behind it all was that we felt like Voight killing Bingham needed to ultimately, cost him something. There needed to be a consequence to what he did. We thought that possibly losing his best friend became this interesting idea that we all graduated toward. We could see this long arc playing out in that direction.”

In a conversation with Eid, he revealed telling Koteas was “brutal”.

“…It was a hard decision because we all really liked it creatively – it just felt like there was honesty to the story telling that we all got excited about – then came the practical reality of ‘Wait, he’s one of our favorite characters and one of our favorite actors and favorite people in real life,’” Eid said. “All that stuff was just really hard. I think we finally all got on the same page and said, ‘Wow we’re really gonna do this,’ probably a week before we started shooting that episode. It was truly just one of those things that just evolved from storytelling and at the end of 20 ‘What If’s,’ everybody kept coming back to this idea of how this would impact Voight.”

As far as what comes next for the series, Eid admitted he is still digesting Olinsky’s death himself.

“The short answer is I’m not sure where we’re going to pick up and kick off season 6,” Eid said.

The series, along with sister series Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, will return to NBC in fall 2018.