Law & Order (franchise)
Law & Order is a media franchise composed of a number of related American television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment. They were originally broadcast on NBC, and all of them deal with some aspect of the criminal justice system. Together, the original series, its various spin-offs, the TV film, and crossover episodes from other shows constitute over 1,000 hours of programming.
This article is about the franchise and its spin-offs. For the original series, see Law & Order.Law & Order
Shared characters and fictional organizations, such as Hudson University and the New York Ledger tabloid newspaper, serve as connecting links between the shows. Many supporting characters, such as district attorneys, psychologists, and medical examiners are also shared among the shows. Occasionally, crossovers of main characters or shared storylines between two of the shows will occur. A few major characters have also left the cast of one show within the franchise only to eventually join another. The music, style, and credits of the shows tend to be similar, with the voiceover in the opening of every series performed by Steven Zirnkilton.[1][2] The shows share the iconic "dun, dun" sound effect of a jail cell locking, created, along with the theme songs, by Mike Post.[3] Past episodes of the American series are in syndication with local over-the-air stations, along with cable channels such as USA Network and Bravo (both owned by the franchise's production company, NBCUniversal), TNT, WGN America, Ion Television, and AMC Networks' SundanceTV and WeTV, showing episodes sometimes up to six times a day. Its ubiquity on the NBCUniversal fledgling streaming platform Peacock ("...19 zillion reruns...") was noted by The Wall Street Journal in January 2024.
In October 2012, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit showrunner/executive producer Warren Leight said of the future of the Law & Order franchise, "[Dick Wolf and I] sometimes talk in general terms of where (the franchise) could go. I'm curious to see if there's another iteration somewhere down the line," he says. "We try hard to maintain a certain level of quality which I think is why the shows sustained in reruns so well. And I'd like to believe there's room for another generation in some way."[4] In February 2015, NBC was purported to have interest in bringing back the flagship Law & Order as a limited series.[5] On September 28, 2021, NBC announced that a 21st season had been ordered.[6]
Seven television series make up the Law & Order franchise: Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, Criminal Intent, Trial by Jury, LA, True Crime, and Organized Crime. All series in total amount to 1,355 episodes across 65 seasons of television.
In development/unproduced series[edit]
Law & Order: Hate Crimes[edit]
In September 2018, NBC announced that it had given an order of 13 episodes for a new installment of the franchise, titled Law & Order: Hate Crimes, which would be introduced on Law & Order: SVU.[26][27] Later, on March 4, 2019, NBC said that the series would be heading back into redevelopment to flesh out the concept and such an introduction on SVU would not take place.[28] The series was once again touted in 2020 as part of a multi-year contract signed with creator Dick Wolf.[11] The series would likely move to Peacock due to language concerns as of June 2020.[29]
Law & Order: For the Defense[edit]
NBC had given a straight-to-series order to Law & Order: For the Defense on May 3, 2021, a new legal drama from creator Wolf that would take a look inside a criminal defense firm. The premise of the ordered series was to put defense attorneys under the microscope, along with the criminal justice system, with every week delivering the promise of a contemporary morality tale.[30] On May 14, NBC announced that the series would premiere during the 2021–22 television season, leading off a trio of Law & Order franchise series on Thursdays in the same manner as the network's Wednesday Chicago grouping.[31] On July 15, multiple trade publications reported that NBC and Wolf had mutually agreed to scrap the series, which had not yet cast any roles, and that a different spin-off (later revealed as the revival of the original series) was in the works.[32][33]
Media[edit]
TV film[edit]
The Law & Order franchise has one TV film, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998). Chris Noth reprises his role as Mike Logan, as the film explores what happened to the character following his departure from the original series.
Video games[edit]
The franchise has also spawned a series of video games for the PC, which feature appearances by then-current cast members of the TV series.
The typical course of most of the games follows the original series' format with the player investigating a crime with interviews of witnesses and examination of evidence. After the arrest is made, the player then prosecutes the case with challenges such as selecting appropriate questions for witnesses on the stand, recognizing improper questions to raise objections and selecting the most persuasive arguments for the judge to allow certain evidence in court.
Location[edit]
Setting[edit]
Most of the American series have been filmed almost entirely in the New York City area. The fictional Hudson University is a recurring location across multiple series in the franchise, based on an amalgam of Columbia University and New York University,[45] with some other colleges appearing as additional filming locations. Hudson University has also appeared less frequently in many other television series and movies, and is a fictional college in the DC universe.[46][47]
The original Law & Order series has filmed a few episodes in the Los Angeles area and Baltimore; these episodes or portions of episodes were set in the cities in which they were filmed and concerned multi-jurisdictional investigations or extradition. Law & Order: LA expanded the franchise to a new main city, the new series' namesake. L&O: LA was canceled after one season.
Effects on casting[edit]
With some frequency, actors have appeared on the various series that make up the franchise, usually as different (sometimes very different) characters. This is because filming occurs in the New York City area and thus draws from the same pool of actors. Some prominent examples of the same actor playing different roles in different episodes are:
Also due to the New York filming, a number of actors appearing in Law & Order shows have had regular or recurring roles on soaps. Most notable is Tamara Tunie, who simultaneously played both medical examiner Melinda Warner on SVU as well as (until 2007) District Attorney Jessica Griffin on As the World Turns. Likewise, New York theater actors have also been frequently cast.
Also as the result of sharing the same pool of New York–based television actors, the series' casts have had significant overlap with that of the former HBO series Oz. This is perhaps most pronounced in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, whose cast has included three regularly credited actors (Christopher Meloni, BD Wong and Dean Winters), as well as two recurring actors (J. K. Simmons and Mike Doyle) who were also regularly credited actors on Oz, also Kathryn Erbe from Oz starring in Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Similarly, Law & Order: UK sees significant overlap with other programs' casts; most prominently series regulars Freema Agyeman and Peter Davison, who starred in Doctor Who as companion Martha Jones and the Fifth Doctor as well as Bradley Walsh who joined the show at the same time as Jodie Whittaker the Thirteenth Doctor as her companion Graham O'Brien.