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Law & Order is the longest-running primetime drama currently on American television (2004). A police procedural and courtroom drama series, it first screened on the NBC network in 1990.
Created by Dick Wolf, award-winning Law & Order is syndicated on other US networks and worldwide.
Description
The show follows a small team of New York City detectives who investigate a serious crime (usually a murder). Generally, about halfway through the hour-long program the focus shifts from the investigation of the crime to the prosecution of the offender, which is always handed over to the same small team of lawyers from the Manhattan District Attorney's office (this format stems from an early idea that the show could be rerun in syndication as two separate half-hour episodes instead of one hour-long episode. However, apart from syndication cuts, episodes are generally shown intact anyway). The two-tiered format of the program is almost identical to a 1960s series entitled Arrest and Trial, although the similarities are considered to be coincidental.
The series has a number of distinctive stylistic touches. The show is shot on location in New York, New York and is known for its extensive use of local color - NYC Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have appeared on the show in recent seasons. The cold open usually shows a slice of New York life unrelated to the main story until the characters in the scene suddenly discover (or witness, or become victims of) a crime. The scene immediately cuts to the police making a prelimary examination of the crime scene in which the featured detectives make their first observations and theories then make a pithy comment before the title sequence begins. Many scenes are preceded with a card indicating the location and date of the events portrayed. Perhaps best known is the musical sting which accompanies scene changes. It has been described as both the "Doink, Doink" or "Chink, Chink" sound.
The show's cast of police and lawyers are portrayed as basically honest professionals, very rarely straying from the boundaries of accepted procedure and usually solving crimes by hard slog and attention to detail rather than hunches and personal whimsy. Their private lives are rarely mentioned, and usually only in passing or if they intrude on their work. Perhaps the scenes involving lawyers stray from reality a little more, with a far higher proportion of cases going to trial than in real life (although plea bargaining plays a far greater role than in other series), trial lawyers acting as pseudo-detectives, and an unusually high number of twists near the end of trials. In contrast to detective shows of the 1950s such as Perry Mason, the protagonists of the program do not always win their cases, and many programs have resolutions in which the case against the offender is won, but justice is still not fully served.
Most Law & Order episodes are self-contained, with only a few exceptions over the many years of production.
Many of the storylines on the show, particularly in later seasons, have been widely regarded as thinly-disguised fictionalizations of recent real criminal cases that have been reported in the news media. Some of these episodes are even promoted as being “ripped from the headlines.”
Law & Order is noted for its revolving cast: none of the original actors still appear in the series, and many have stayed for a few seasons before moving on. This continual replacing of actors has not appeared to harm the program's popularity. In fact, it has been speculated that this has contributed to the series' long run since the regular turnover of cast members has allowed cast salaries to be kept relatively low. Also, the regular appearance of new faces in the cast has continually changed the show's dynamic, allowing it to effectively reinvent itself repeatedly.
The four long-serving exceptions are Steven Hill (1990–2000) as District Attorney Adam Schiff, Jerry Orbach (1992–2004) as Detective Lennie Briscoe, S. Epatha Merkerson (1993–present) as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, and Sam Waterston (1994–present) as Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy.
The show's most recent cast changes were announced in 2004 when longtime performer Jerry Orbach left the series at the end of Season 14 to star in the spinoff, Law & Order: Trial by Jury. Orbach died shortly after production began on Trial by Jury after a long battle with prostate cancer. He will appear in the three episodes he completed before his death. In addition, Elisabeth Röhm, who played Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn for three and a half years, left the series midway through the 2004-2005 season; her successor is Annie Parisse, who playes ADA Alexandra Borgia.
It is anticipated that, barring a catastrophic drop in its Nielsen ratings, Law & Order will easily survive until its 20th season, thereby tying the record for longest-running American prime time drama currently held by Gunsmoke (1955-1975).
Related series
The show's popularity has resulted in the creation of three other television dramas under the same brand: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), and Law & Order: Trial by Jury (debuts on March 3rd, 2005). While the former two shows focus more on the police side of a case, the latter focuses almost entirely on courtroom drama.
The pilot episode "Everybody's Favorite Bagman" was produced for CBS in 1988. Law & Order crossed over three times with another NBC show, Homicide: Life on the Street. There was also a TV movie called (1998), which featured the fate of Mike Logan (played by Chris Noth), one of the popular characters who departed the series.
The producers have also crafted a reality television series, Crime and Punishment (2002), which focuses on actual trials. The producers of Law & Order also produced an updated version of the series Dragnet which was not successful.
In addition, there are series of Law & Order computer games in which the player investigates crimes and then prosecutes the resulting cases.
The ever-growing number of spin-offs from Law & Order prompted one episode of The Simpsons to lampoon the series with a brief clip of Law & Order: Elevator Inspectors Unit. Similarly, Saturday Night Live featured a promo for Law & Order: Parking Violations Unit.
The format of the series (half investigation/half trial) is nearly identical to an earlier short-lived American series, Arrest and Trial that aired in 1963. Law and Order creator Dick Wolf was reportedly unaware of this when he created his series. Arrest & Trial, made in 2000, is also a series produced by Dick Wolf.
Regular cast
 The late Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe and Sam Waterston as Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy, two of the longest-running characters in the series. In keeping with the word order in the show's title and the typical plot sequence of each episode, the show's opening credits identify the police characters with "Law" and the lawyers with "Order". The regular characters have been:
- Law
- The older cop
- The younger cop
- The police captain
Note: In December 2004, Michael Imperioli was announced as a temporary replacement for Jesse Martin for the last few episodes of the 15th season. This is in order to allow Martin to fulfil a movie contract; Martin is scheduled to return for the beginning of the 16th season.
- Order
- The Executive Assistant District Attorney (formerly Chief Assistant District Attorney)
- The Assistant District Attorney
- Richard Brooks - ADA Paul Robinette (1990-1993, Season 1 - 3)
- Jill Hennessy - ADA Clare Kincaid (1993-1996, Season 4 - 6)
- Carey Lowell - ADA Jamie Ross (1996-1998, Season 7 - 8)
- Angie Harmon - ADA Abbie Carmichael (1998-2001, Season 9 - 11)
- Elisabeth Röhm - ADA Serena Southerlyn (2001-2005, Season 12 - 15)
- Annie Parisse - ADA Alexandra Borgia (2005-present, Season 15 - Present)
- The District Attorney
- Steven Hill - DA Adam Schiff (1990-2000, Season 1 -10)
- Dianne Wiest - Interim DA Nora Lewin (2000-2002, Season 11 - 12)
- Fred Dalton Thompson - DA Arthur Branch (2002-present, Season 13 - Present)
Recurring supporting cast
For a brief period, Carolyn McCormick also had star billing as a psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Olivet. This may have been intended to address criticism of not having any actresses in the show. J.K. Simmons's character Emil Skoda later became the staff psychiatrist. There are several other recurring characters, among them John Fiore as Det. Tony Profaci, Lorraine Toussaint as Defense Attorney Shambala Green, Tovah Feldshuh as Defense Attorney Danielle Melnick, Leslie Hendrix as Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers M.D., and Josh Pais as Assistant Medical Examiner Borak.
Because the show is filmed in New York City and requires a large number of guest stars for each episode, many actors - often from the Broadway stage - return in different roles. Jerry Orbach played a defense lawyer in the second season before returning to the show in his signature role of Detective Lennie Briscoe, who intensely dislikes defense lawyers for protecting the "scum of the earth." S. Epatha Merkerson appeared on season 1 (1991) as the mother of a young teenager before becoming a regular as Lt. Anita Van Buren. Annie Parisse also appeared in season 12 (2002) as Jasmine Blake before she entered the role of Assistant District Attorney Alexandria Borgia. In addition, several actors appeared in episodes before they were well known; Cynthia Nixon, Dylan Baker, Kelli Williams, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Edie Falco are among them.
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