History YMMV / ChicagoPD

** Due to the real-life police brutality becoming more frequent, it can be difficult to watch Voight or anyone else rough up suspects, [[KickTheSonOfABitch no matter how much they might deserve it]].

** Poor Nadia Descottis. Starts out as a drug-addicted prostitute, manages to turn her life around after several relapses with some help from Lindsay and Platt, and just as she's realizing her goal to become a CPD officer she's [[spoiler: abducted and brutally raped, tortured, and murdered]] just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
** The departure of Erin Lindsay has caused this reaction from some fans, particularly those who ship a Linstead relationship. The reason why her actress left only caused more outrage.
** The unexpected [[DroppedABridgeOnHim murder]] of Alvin Olinsky angered many, many fans, as he was well loved and was only killed due to Voight's actions, which is called out on even in-universe.
** The [[PutOnABus departures]] of Antonio Dawson was lamented by many, as he was not only around since the beginning, but showed up even before the series began, starting out as a recurring guest character on ''Series/ChicagoFire''.
** Jay Halstead's departure might have inspired the most vitriol among the fans. Initially, people thought that the actor was being fired or pushed out, but even when that was disproved, his departure episode was so badly mishandled (Halstead decides to up and join the army without discussing it with his wife, and only discussing it with his brother off-screen) that fans stayed upset at the creative staff. A later episode revealing that he intentionally asked to extend his time abroad, again without telling Hailey, only inflamed fans further.
** A sizeable number of fans see Season 8 as this with its focus on minimizing police brutality against (mostly minority) suspects.

* FanonDiscontinuity: The BackdoorPilot episodes setting up the short-lived and somewhat controversial ''Series/ChicagoJustice'' spinoff feel a little too transparent about having that role, in addition to having a little too much angst.

* ShooOutTheClowns: For the show's first three seasons, the grim and gritty activities of the Intelligence Unit were usually combined with a much lighter subplot involving Officer Burgess and her partner (Atwater in season 1, Roman in seasons 2-3) clashing with smug Desk Sergeant Platt or performing community outreach. However, Roman's departure at the end of season 3, and Burgess joining Voight's squad in mid-season 4 has left the Intelligence Unit the almost sole focus of the show. Even when she does show up, Platt's comedic aspects have been entirely removed.

** The departure of Erin Lindsay has caused this reaction from some fans, particularly those who ship a Linstead relationship. The unexpected [[DroppedABridgeOnHim murder]] of Alvin Olinsky and the [[PutOnABus departures]] of Antonio Dawson and Jay Halstead have met similar responses.

** The departure of Erin Lindsay has caused this reaction from some fans, particularly those who ship a Linstead relationship. The unexpected [[DroppedABridgeOnHim murder]] of Alvin Olinsky and the [[PutOnABus departure]] of Antonio Dawson have met similar responses.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Series/NewYorkUndercover'', (which, technically, is set in the same universe). Some of the storylines and even subplots are so similar, anyone old enough to remember NYU or has see the reruns could swear there were more than a few instances of [[RecycledPlot recycling]].

** Vanessa Rojas joined the Intelligence Unit in Season 7 and, according to showrunner Rick Eid, was being set up as a possible romantic interest for Atwater. Unfortunately, while she's given some decent development as a character, we only get a few peeks at her backstory and the connection between her and Atwater doesn't make it past ShipTease territory. She only lasted one season, due to COVID-19 cutting the season short, Lisseth Chavez's contract not getting renewed (which Chavez has stated wasn't by her choice), and Chavez being subsequently cast as a regular in ''[[Series/LegendsOfTomorrow DC's Legends of Tomorrow]]''. Worse yet, unlike with other characters who were PutOnABus or KilledOffForReal, no one even mentions Rojas when Season 8 premieres, leading some to wonder if she has been [[RetCon retconned]] altogether.

** Makayla, Burgess's adopted daughter. Her gangster father and his girlfriend murder her entire immediate family, leaving her in a state of shock when Burgess and Ruzek find her wandering around, and makes repeatedviolent attempts to abduct her before being arrested and sent away for life. The experience leaves her with night terrors and implied PTSD. Out of her two remaining relatives, her older cousin has mental health issues that keep her from being able to properly care for her, which leads Burgess to step up and [[HappilyAdopted adopt]] her. Then, just when things are going good and she's getting some stability, her father hires two goons to kidnap her for ransom, mortally wounding her babysitter in front of her in the process, and she spends the next day being held captive and repeatedly shot up with tranquilizers before Burgess and Ruzek find her, setting back any progress made in negotiating her psychological trauma up to that point.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: One of the most consistent complaints fans and viewers have about the show is that the writers will develop a suspenseful storyline and then either end it as anti-climatically as possible or drop it altogether, in either case never to be brought up or elaborated upon again before jumping to a new story with little to no connection to the previous one. Seasons 8 and 9 provide many of the most recent and egregious examples, with Atwater's blue wall storyline, Voight's redemption arc, Burgess's injury and recovery, and the way the investigation into Roy Walton was wrapped up all suffering hard from this.

** One of the most consistent complaints fans and viewers have about the show is that the writers will develop a suspenseful storyline and then either end it as anti-climatically as possible or drop it altogether never to be brought up or elaborated upon again and jump to a new story with little to no connection to the previous one. Seasons 8 and 9 provide many of the most recent and egregious examples, with Atwater's blue wall storyline, Voight's redemption arc, Burgess's injury and recovery, and the way the investigation into Roy Walton was wrapped up all suffering hard from this.

** The replacing of Erin Lindsay with Hailey Upton, both on the Unit and seemingly as Halstead's love interest has met with divided responses. Some fans are okay with it, especially in light of the RealLife reason Creator/SophiaBush left the show, while others feel that Upton is too flat, personality-wise, as a character.

** In the Season 9 premiere, picking up where the above left off, we have Halstead again grabbing this, but this time joined by Atwater. Again, both have worked closely with Voight and know exactly how vengeful he can be, yet the fact that he spends the entire episode perfectly calm and reasonable while covering the one ''lead'' they have to Burgess' shooter doesn't ring any alarm bells in their heads.

** In the Season 9 premiere, picking up where the above left off, we have both Ruzek and Atwater. Both have worked closely with Voight for almost a decade each and ''know'' how pissed off and vengeful he gets whenever someone close to him is heavily injured. Yet the fact that Voight acts perfectly calm and reasonable throughout the episode (as if they're catching some random killer-of-the-week) doesn't ring any alarm bells inside their head.

* IdiotBall: Halstead in the Season 8 finale. He's been with Voight for almost a decade now and should know that, while he may try to reign himself in due to the police brutality issue, he will drop any pretense once revenge consumes him. So, when Hailey says she's going after Voight (eventually leading to the situation described in AlternateCharacterInterpretation above), you would think that would clue Halstead in that something might be amiss with Voight. But the real idiocy comes at the end of the episode. Hailey walks back into her and Halstead's apartment with a shellshocked look on her face, as if she witnessed something horrific. Despite knowing she was after Voight, Halstead doesn't put two and two together and realize Voight did something terrible again and buys Hailey's unconvincing "No, I'm OK" reply at face value.
** It could be argued that Halstead was in shock from Hailey [[spoiler: asking her to marry her]] immediately after the "I'm OK". Plus, if he'd taken time to deal with her and Voight, he (and probably Atwater) wouldn't have found Burgess in time to get her to a hospital.

* BrokenBase: Fans are divided over the ''Fire-PD-SVU'' event episodes, especially because ''Series/ChicagoFire'' is only ever tangentially involved in the stories by setting up the plot in the final minutes of Tuesday's episode while the proper story is explored in a Wednesday two-parter. This remains an issue even with the shows now running back-to-back on Wednesdays, with the "Infection" Crossover being the first decent job of intertwining them and ''Series/ChicagoMed.'' There are still others who dislike having ''Chicago'' shows connected to ''Law & Order'' at all, preferring that a unique ''Chicago''-verse be developed.

* CompleteMonster: [[SmugSnake Franklin Barnes]], from season 4's "Don't Read the News", is a family man who moonlights as a vicious SerialKiller who preys on young African-American sex workers on the South Side. After luring a girl into his car, Barnes drives them to a secluded area, where he strangles and shoots them before [[ILoveTheDead having sex with their dead body]], taking photographs all the while. In 2008, Barnes claimed at least ten lives, with his only surviving victim being Cherry, a fifteen-year-old who was rendered infertile after she was brutally assaulted and left for dead by Barnes. After seemingly taking a nearly decade-long break, Barnes resurfaces and kills three more girls, with one of them being his son Ricky's girlfriend, Grace. Barnes sets Ricky up [[FrameUp to take the fall for all of the murders]], but is caught anyway after he is recognized by Cherry. During interrogation, Barnes smugly implies that he has dozens of other victims, and when asked how he could throw his own son under the bus, coldly replies, "He'll get over it."

* HarsherInHindsight: Due to the real-life police brutality becoming more frequent, it can be difficult to watch Voight or anyone else rough up suspects, [[KickTheSonOfABitch no matter how much they might deserve it]].
** It got even harder due to [[http://tvline.com/2017/11/21/jason-beghe-chicago-pd-season-5-anger-issues-hank-voight/#tvline-comments-889105 the revelation of actor Jason Beghe (Voight)'s anger management issues that most likely drove Sophia Bush to leave the show]].

** Compare Burgess in "Turn Off The Light" and "I Was Here" 6 seasons later. Both times, she takes on the episode's BigBad solo; both times, she gets brutally beaten down; and both times, Ruzek finds her temporarily incapcitated in a bath tub and "Are you ok?" are the first words out of his mouth. In the former, she shoots back that she's fine and tells him to go after the perp instead of worrying about her. In the latter, she's shot the perp to death in self-defense but is beyond distraught not just from her pain but from the fact that [[spoiler: she was pregnant with Ruzek's child and fearful of the damage that was done to it]], sobbing "I don know" repeatedly and begging him to help her.
* HilariousInHindsight: Burgess [[spoiler: becoming pregnant with Ruzek's child, with the obvious implication that she'll be placed on desk duty followed by maternity leave, happens roughly a season and a half after she was PutOnABus due to Marina Squerciati being placed on maternity leave for real. Ironically, the episodes leading up to that had Burgess spending most of her initial Intelligence time [[HideYourPregnancy behind a desk]]]].

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Series/NewYorkUndercover'', (which technically is set in the same universe). Some of the storylines and even subplots are so similar, anyone old enough to remember NYU or has see the reruns could swear there were more than a few instances of [[RecycledPlot recycling]].
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: [[spoiler: Lexi]] is killed largely just to provide a little angst, and make for a more meaningful pilot for ''Series/ChicagoJustice'', which ended up [[ShortRunner being quickly cancelled]] despite the fact that there would have been great potential to use her in the next season, when her father is in prison and being targeted for death.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The departure of Erin Lindsay has caused this reaction from some fans, particularly those who ship a Linstead relationship. The unexpected [[DroppedABridgeOnHim murder]] of Alvin Olinsky and the [[PutOnABus departure]] of Antonio Dawson have met similar responses.

** There's an ongoing debate as to whether Season 8 is doing as much as should to tackle the issue police brutality and reform after this and other cop shows have been called out for basically glorifying violent or unethical practices as long as the bad guy gets put away. While most fans and critics praise it for being to willing to openly and consistently take these issues on, some viewers feel that it isn't doing enough to address them and that the attempts to do so are either unrealistic or downplayed and still let cops get a KarmaHoudini. Still others have taken a TheyChangedItNowItSucks viewpoint to the focus on police reform and the fact that Voight seems to have at least toned down on his CowboyCop tactics, which they view as his trademark characteristic. Likewise, they aren't fans of Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller and her agenda for a more ethical police force.

** Burgess [[spoiler: losing her unborn child]] after being assaulted on the job becomes this when you consider that just 2 seasons prior, Marina Squerciati was doing her own stunts, several of which involved similar combat scenes, well into her own pregnancy.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The departure of Erin Lindsay has caused this reaction from some fans, particularly those who ship a Linstead relationship. The unexpected [[DroppedABridgeOnHim murder]] of Alvin Olinsky and the [[PutOnABus departure]] of Antonio Dawson have met similar responses.

** There's an ongoing debate as to whether Season 8 is doing as much as should to tackle the issue police brutality and reform after this and other cop shows have been called out for basically glorifying violent or unethical practices as long as the bad guy gets put away. While most fans and critics praise it for being to willing to openly and consistently take these issues on, some viewers feel that it isn't doing enough to address them and that the attempts to do so are either unrealistic or downplayed and still let cops get a KarmaHoudini. On the third flip side of this, however, other viewers have taken a TheyChangedItNowItSucks viewpoint to the fact that Voight seems to have at least toned down his CowboyCop tactics. Likewise, they aren't fans of Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller and her agenda for a more ethical police force.

** There's an ongoing debate as to whether Season 8 is doing as much as should to tackle the issue police brutality and reform after this and other cop shows have been called out for basically glorifying violent or unethical practices as long as the bad guy gets put away. Some viewers feel that it isn't and that the attempts to do so are either unrealistic or downplayed and still let cops get a KarmaHoudini. On the flip side, other viewers take a TheyChangedItNowItSucks viewpoint to the fact that Voight seems to have at least toned down his CowboyCop tactics and aren't fans of Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller and her agenda for a more ethical police force.