CBS Cuts Episode Orders for Four Dramas — Fire Country Down to 13 Episodes for Season 5

CBS used to be the last holdout of the full-season broadcast order. This year, the eye network is putting four of its biggest dramas on a strict diet — and telling you it’s about making room, not cutting bait.

LOS ANGELES — Per reporting first published by Deadline in May 2026 and corroborated across the trades this fall, Fire Country will produce just 13 episodes for its fifth season, down from 20 for Season 4. The Kathy Bates legal drama Matlock gets 13 episodes for Season 3, down from 16. And the two younger NCIS spinoffs, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney, will each run 10 episodes for Seasons 3 and 4, respectively — down from 18 and 20. The four shows were all renewed earlier in 2026, which is precisely the point: CBS is not canceling these shows. It is squeezing them into a schedule that suddenly has more hours spoken for than ever.

Consider the math of what CBS added. New dramas NCIS: New York and the legal procedural Cupertino were both handed full 20-episode first-season loads on the fall schedule. The Matthew Gray Gubler procedural Einstein arrives at midseason with 13 episodes, and the comedy Eternally Yours joins the lineup as well. You cannot add that much scripted inventory — the largest CBS drama slate in years — without taking something off the table elsewhere. The shortened orders are how the network threads the needle: keep the hits, feed the newcomers, and avoid the cancellations that would come with a traditional 22-episode grid.

Matlock’s cut is the easiest to understand, because the show asked for it. Creator and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman requested the midseason berth so the writers could rebuild the series after the Season 2 finale closed out its central mystery — the Wellbrexa storyline — with Senior’s arrest and plans for Matty and Olympia to start their own firm. She told TVLine the upcoming season features a time jump of at least six months, and the move bought the room the reset needs: “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 returns the favor with a 13-episode order at midseason 2027.

Fire Country’s cut lands differently. Max Thieriot’s firefighter drama is one of CBS’s biggest Friday success stories, and it will remain on the fall schedule at 9 p.m., sandwiched between the spinoff Sheriff Country and Boston Blue — a Friday block that network entertainment president Amy Reisenbach has called out as the network’s anchor, noting the Friday lineup has been No. 1 for 16 straight seasons. But the show will leave the lineup earlier than usual, with its 13-episode season wrapping well before the traditional May finales. The shorter season also coincides with a leadership change: showrunner Tia Napolitano is out, and Eric Guggenheim (Magnum P.I., Hawaii Five-0) takes the helm for Season 5 — a shift toward a more procedural, tactical firefighting emphasis, according to industry coverage of the transition.

The NCIS Tuesday shuffle is the cleanest illustration of the new scheduling logic. NCIS: Origins, the prequel built around a young Gibbs, airs this fall in the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot behind the mothership series — then steps aside at midseason for NCIS: Sydney, with both shows airing 10 episodes. The mothership NCIS itself, entering its 24th season, is expected to receive a full order, while the LL Cool J–led newcomer NCIS: New York gets a full 20-episode first season and joins the Tuesday block for the entire 2026–27 run. Two shows, one slot, 20 combined hours: that’s the shape of broadcast’s new math.

None of this would be remarkable on cable or streaming, where 10-episode seasons are the default. What makes it notable at CBS is that the network was the last bastion of the full-season factory model — the place where a procedural could still expect 20-plus episodes and a September-to-May arc. The 2026–27 cuts acknowledge what the rest of the industry already priced in: shorter runs concentrate budgets, tighten storytelling, and give networks flexibility to carry more titles at once. Most other broadcast networks are holding their scripted volume roughly steady year over year; CBS is going for a sizable increase instead, and the episode trims are the price of that ambition.

The open question is what viewers actually get. Shorter seasons can mean leaner, event-quality arcs — fewer filler episodes, bigger budgets per hour, story engines that never stall. They can also mean a season that ends just as a storyline finds its footing, and for procedurals like Fire Country, fewer of the weekly “fire of the week” installments that built the audience in the first place. Fans of NCIS: Sydney, whose previous season ran 20 episodes, will feel the difference most acutely: half the episodes, half the year in the slot.

There is a tell in what CBS protected. The shows that kept full orders — NCIS, NCIS: New York, Cupertino — are either the franchise flagship or the launches the network needs to establish. The trims fell on shows the network believes can survive on fewer hours, which is a bet on brand strength rather than a vote of no confidence. All four were renewed; none are on a cancellation watch. The story here is not what CBS killed. It’s how the network is learning to fit more television into a season than the old model allows.

For viewers, the practical takeaway is a busier, more fragmented CBS. Follow our fall premiere-week guide for the full schedule, see how the Tuesday NCIS block is structured, catch the new legal drama in our Elsbeth and Cupertino premiere coverage, and browse everything in TV browse.