Farewell, Otis: Why ‘Chicago Fire’ lost one of its own
A: Now that it’s been more than a month since that sad event in the NBC drama’s season opener, we feel that we’ve done our due diligence to time-shifting viewers – and that it’s less of a spoiler to address it at this point. Interviews given by actor Yuri Sardarov since that episode aired suggest that he had been thinking about moving on, and that script development gave him the license to do so. That story was filmed in July, so consider how many people on the show’s cast and crew were trusted to keep the secret of Otis’ fate for two months ... and they succeeded, resulting in fans being shocked and saddened by the turn of events, and moved by the fictional firehouse’s establishment of a memorial site for fallen colleagues inspired by Otis.
Q: Why did “Chicago Fire” kill off the character Otis? – Judy Beach, via e-mail Q: Didn’t Faye Dunaway do a TV series once? – George Fine, Port Orange, Fla.
A: The Oscar winner had her own weekly show once, but it didn’t last long. “It Had to Be You” was a 1993 CBS sitcom in which she played a publisher who opted for career over love – yes, sort of like a certain television executive in the movie “Network” – until she fell for the widower -father carpenter (Robert Urich) she hired to work on her home. One of the sons was played by Will Estes, who’s had much more success with CBS via “Blue Bloods.” Though nine episodes of “It Had to Be You” reportedly were made, only four aired before it was pulled from the schedule. The plan was for the show to be revised, minus Dunaway, and to return with the Urich character and the sons as the focus. However, that idea became moot, since the series simply never came back. Dunaway later would do guest shots on such dramas as “Touched by an Angel,” “Alias,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”