Photo illustration by The Daily Beast/NBC
It’s been nearly 34 years since the first episode of Law & Order aired. Ever since, NBC has always featured some kind of Law & Order series on its weekly TV schedule, including the network’s current Thursday night slate, which includes a revamped version of the original series followed by Special Victims Unit and Organized Crime. That’s three solid hours of “ripped from the headlines” cases and ominous chung-chung sounds, week after week… which may seem like a lot. But hey, these are formulaic shows, and formulas are easily replicated.
Then again, formulas can also be easily tainted. Ingredients go bad. Additives don’t mix. The machinery rusts. You get the idea. The point is that while the Law & Order franchise is still reliably diverting and keeps generating solid ratings, something about the whole enterprise lately has been a bit… off.
It’s hard to say how far back the problem goes. The original Law & Order—an Emmy-winning smash hit in the ’90s—was creatively sputtering by the time it signed off for the first time in 2010. It hasn’t really returned to form since it was revived in 2022. The mothership series maintains two links to its heyday: Sam Waterston playing District Attorney Jack McCoy, and a commitment to turning sensational and often politically divisive real-life news stories into gripping procedural plots.