Fire Country Season 5 Episode Order Cut At CBS, With NCIS Origins, Sydney, Matlock

You’ll be seeing less of your favorite CBS dramas next season.

The Eye network is reducing the episode orders for four of its returning dramas, Deadline reports, leading with “Fire Country,” which will air just 13 episodes in the upcoming Season 5, after airing 20 this season. (TVLine has reached out to CBS for confirmation.) The Season 4 finale of the firefighter drama starring Max Thieriot is slated to air Friday, May 22 at 9 p.m. 

Also seeing reduced episode orders next season: “NCIS” spin-offs “NCIS: Origins” (entering Season 3) and “NCIS: Sydney” (entering Season 4), which will air 10 episodes each, after airing 18 and 20 this season, respectively. “Origins” will air Tuesdays at 10 p.m. this fall after the original “NCIS” and new spin-off “NCIS: New York,” with “Sydney” taking over its time slot at midseason. 

The fourth and final CBS show seeing an episode order cut is “Matlock,” which will air 13 episodes when it returns for Season 3 at midseason, after airing 16 this season. (Season 2 of the Kathy Bates-led courtroom drama wrapped up earlier this month.) All four shows were renewed by CBS in January.

The reasons for “Matlock” getting a reduced episode order are said to be creative in nature: The Season 2 finale wrapped up the series-long Wellbrexa storyline, with law firm partner Senior getting arrested for his role in the cover-up and Matty and Olympia plotting to open their own firm. (Check out our finale post mortem here.) Season 3 will kick off with a time jump of at least six months, showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman tells TVLine: “That’s why I’m grateful for midseason, because we have to create a whole new spine… We need time to make sure that it comes in organically and that it gives us everything Wellbrexa does, but it’s totally different.”

CBS is also adding a number of new dramas next season, with “NCIS: New York” (starring “NCIS: Los Angeles” alum LL COOL J along with Scott Caan) airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m. this fall and legal drama “Cupertino” (from “The Good Wife” creators Robert and Michelle King) airing Thursdays at 10 p.m., after “Elsbeth.” (Both are set to run for 20 episodes in their freshman seasons.) Plus, the new procedural “Einstein,” led by “Criminal Minds” veteran Matthew Gray Gubler, is slated to debut at midseason with a 13-episode order.

CBS fans, how are we feeling about these episode orders getting chopped? Let us know in a comment below.