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1990 TV series or program
Law & Order
Created byDick Wolf
Starring(current cast)
Law
Jesse L. Martin
Milena Govich
S. Epatha Merkerson
Order
Sam Waterston
Alana de la Garza
Fred Dalton Thompson
Country of originUnited States United States
No. of episodes381
Production
Running time60 minutes
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseSeptember 13, 1990 –
present
Law & Order
Characters
Police
District attorneys
Seasons
Episodes
Television film

Law & Order is an American television police procedural and legal drama set in New York City. Created by Dick Wolf, with award-winning theme music composed by Mike Post, the award-winning Law & Order is broadcast on the NBC network and syndicated on other US networks, as well as worldwide. The show is produced by NBC Universal Television Studio, formerly known as Universal Television and Studios USA.

Law & Order first appeared on the NBC network in the fall of 1990, and its success has resulted in the creation of additional shows under the Law & Order franchise. It is the longest-running primetime drama currently on American television. Only two other current primetime series — FOX's animated comedy The Simpsons and CBS News' magazine program 60 Minutes — have been on the air longer.

The pilot episode was produced for CBS in 1988, but it never aired on that network. Instead, it aired as Episode 6 on NBC in 1990.

Law & Order's seventeenth season on NBC began on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 10PM EST and will continue as an anchor of the network's Friday lineup; the show had aired on Wednesdays since 1992, and on Tuesdays before this. The series is broadcast in Canada on CTV. Reruns can be seen regularly each weeknight on TNT (U.S.) and weekdays (1PM) & weeknights (11PM) on Bravo! (Canada). It can be seen in the UK with new episodes first showing on the cable and satellite channel Sky One and later on Sky Two with a terrestrial airing on channel Five. The early seasons are being shown on the Hallmark Channel.

Description

The following statement, narrated by Steven Zirnkilton, is spoken at the beginning of nearly every episode:

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

The show follows a small team of New York City homicide detectives from the fictional 27th Precinct who occasionally investigate other serious crimes. 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.

Two-tiered format

The two-tiered format of the program, with investigation of the crime and prosecution of the crime, is almost identical to a 1960s series entitled Arrest and Trial, although the similarities are considered to be coincidental. Law & Order creator Dick Wolf was reportedly unaware of them when he created his series.

The prosecution portion of Law and Order is unusual in that it shows more legal proceedings than just a trial. The second half almost always opens with an arraignment and then proceeds to trial preparation. However the show does on occasion deviate from this format and centers on either indictment proceedings before a Grand Jury or an allocution upon entering a plea of guilty, usually in consideration for a plea bargain. It is very uncommon for legal dramas to show Grand Jury proceedings. This format is usually seen once or twice per season, with a trial being the norm. Grand Jury episodes focus on the difficulty of obtaining an indictment for a particular accused and often end with a guilty plea and allocution to wrap up the show quickly.

Show format

Most Law & Order episodes are self-contained, with only a few exceptions over the many years of production.

The cold open or lead-in segment of the show usually shows a slice of New York life (walking a dog in Manhattan, jogging in Central Park, etc.) apparently unrelated to the main story until the (usually non-recurring) characters in the scene suddenly discover, witness, or become victims of a crime (most often, murder). Careful attention to these opening segments often reveals subtle connections or hints foreshadowing key aspects of the case. The scene immediately cuts to the police making a preliminary examination of the crime scene in which the featured detectives make their first observations and theories followed by a witty comment or two before the title sequence begins.

The plots often have a resemblance to actual cases, such as in the 1998 episode "Tabloid", in which a woman is killed in an auto accident after being pursued by a gossip reporter. This followed the similar death of Princess Diana the previous summer. This "ripped from the headlines" nature can also be seen in the opening credit sequence which flows from newspaper headlines, print copy, and photographs into photographs of the actors that evolve from newspaper halftones into high resolution photos. Promotional advertisements of episodes with especially close parallels to real-life cases often use the actual phrase "ripped from the headlines," although a text disclaimer within the actual episode emphasizes that the story and its characters are fictional. The format lends itself to exploring different outcomes or motives that similar events could have had under other circumstances.

Because of the nature of the format, the detectives rarely encounter a simple murder where the perpetrator does little to hide his guilt (which is actually very common). Instead, the detectives often have few or no good clues to start with — they may not even know the identity of the victim — and must chase down several dead ends before finding a strong suspect. Towards the middle of a show, the police begin working with the prosecutors to make the arrest, and an arraignment scene is usually shown. The police may appear again to testify in court or arrest a subsequent suspect, but most investigation in the second segment is done by the assistant DAs, who always consult with the District Attorney for advice on the case.

The format includes not delving too much into the private lives of the recurring characters. Some personal information is given, but it is usually incidental, such as conversation that goes on during the course of an episode. In contrast to many other detective shows (Perry Mason and Matlock, for example), the protagonists of Law & Order do not always win their cases; episodes frequently finish without full resolution. Sometimes the true facts of the crime are left ambiguous to the audience. Sometimes the case against the offender is won, but justice still seems lacking. Often the viewer identifies with the defendant and wonders whether punishment under the law is even appropriate. Examples of the above is in an episode from the first season "Subterranean Homeboy Blues" a woman shoots 2 black teenagers, who she claims were going to attack her and another episode "The Reaper's Helper" where a HIV positive man is found dead and it is revealed that he asked a friend to kill him, to avoid developing full-blown AIDS (the episode was made in 1990 when there was hardly any medicine for the disease).

Stylistic touches

Local color

The series has a number of distinctive stylistic touches. The show is shot on location in New York and is known for its extensive use of local color. In recent seasons, NYC Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have both appeared on the show, adding a realistic dimension to the program.

While most of the locations are real, there are two notable exceptions. The fictional Hudson University is often used for college settings and The New York Ledger is typically the tabloid newspaper mentioned and is heavily based on the real-life New York Post. In one episode The Sentinel was used as a competing paper similar to the The New York Times. All are amalgams of actual New York institutions.

On September 14, 2004 in New York City, a road leading to Pier 62 at Chelsea Piers (where the series is mostly shot) was renamed "Law & Order Way", in tribute to the long-running series.

Legitimate theater talent

Because both the interior and exterior filming all occur in New York City, the series has access to a wide variety of regular and guest actors who perform in the legitimate theater. Many times these actors are available for shooting during the day while performing on Broadway in the evening or between engagements.

The card

Most scene changes are preceded with a card indicating the location and date of the events to be portrayed. In episodes where the passage of time is an element (such as a slightly comedic one where Briscoe and Curtis had to finish part of an investigation in time to get to a New York Rangers game), the time to the second is also shown. Perhaps best known is "the sound", a dramatic form of musical sting that accompanies each card. It has been described as a "DUN dun" sound. It was originally developed to sound like a barred door in a jail cell slamming shut (Law). Other fans think it sounds more like a gavel (Order).

In promos for Law & Order: SVU reruns on the USA Network, actor Dann Florek refers to the sting as the "doink doink."

Background music

The show is significant for the almost total absence of background music, making its occasional use even more noticeable, though rarely obtrusive, and never done for melodramatic effect, as in so many other police and law series (e.g.Perry Mason, Matlock). It is perhaps the first dramatic series to use its music in this way.

Portrayal of characters

The show's cast of police and lawyers are portrayed as basically honest professionals who rarely stray from the boundaries of accepted procedure and usually solving crimes by the book, although occasional cases hit home and the detectives and/or ADAs become somewhat personally invested in the case. With the exception of several episodes at the end of Season 8, the show does not employ subplots, and the private lives of the characters are only mentioned in passing. 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 television series), and with trial lawyers sometimes acting as pseudo-detectives.

Technical accuracy

The same detectives always working with the same prosecutors is not a realistic depiction of the legal system, nor is the number of high-profile, highly complicated cases taken on, nor their success in solving nearly all of them. In the actual legal system, trials often take several months to complete, whereas trials on Law & Order tend to take no more than a week. Furthermore, most real cases do not go to trial and are settled with a plea bargain, whereas the trial is a signature part of nearly every Law & Order episode (though several cases do resolve in plea bargains). The Law and Order detectives and prosecutors tend not to work on more than one or two cases an episode, whereas in reality prosecutors may have the carriage of up to one hundred files at any one time. Nonetheless, the characters and process depicted can be seen as amalgams of the entire legal system, and the technically unrealistic legal process as a simplifying plot device necessary for the show to be possible, thus maintaining suspension of disbelief.

Alternatively, viewers can take this point of view: the cases depicted on the show are not all the ones the detectives handle, but only those in which they are working with the specific prosecutors.

Like the lawyers and police on the show, the victims and witnesses of crimes speak in pithy, perfunctory sentences that help to expedite the plot with a minimum of dialogue, even when the same characters are visibly upset or under cross examination. Frequently, questioning of key witnesses lasts a minute or less, even in real time. Expert witnesses typically perform infallibly under cross examination without equivocation. Nevertheless, the defense's expert witnesses, particularly psychiatrists, are regularly shown to be advocates of controversial or fringe ideologies such as Repressed memory or Black rage. Forensic experts are portrayed as almost omniscient and forensic evidence is rarely portrayed as botched or questionable; acquittals are generally gained in the face of forensic evidence only when a defense lawyer successfully argues for its inadmissibility on a sophistic or cynical "technicality". Like many legal dramas the show has thus been accused of providing an unrealistic portrayal of the criminal justice system.Article

Revolving cast

Law & Order is noted for its revolving cast: none of the original six stars are still regulars, and many stay for only a few seasons. This continual replacement of actors has not appeared to harm the program's popularity. In fact, it has been speculated that the transforming cast has contributed to the series's longevity. Also, the regular appearance of new faces in the cast has constantly changed the show's dynamic, allowing it to effectively reinvent itself repeatedly. Four long-serving exceptions are Steven Hill (1990–2000) as Adam Schiff, Sam Waterston (1994–present) as Jack McCoy, Jerry Orbach (1992–2004) as Detective Lennie Briscoe, and S. Epatha Merkerson (1993–present) as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, who is the show's longest-serving actor. Steven Hill was the last member of the original cast to leave the show, though even he did not appear in the series' original pilot episode.

It is widely believed that the Adam Schiff character was based on real life New York County District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau who still serves in the post, aged 87.

Cast changes were announced in 2004 when longtime performer Orbach left the series at the end of Season 14 to star in the spinoff, Law & Order: Trial by Jury. Orbach died shortly after producing the first two episodes after a long battle with prostate cancer. Dennis Farina replaced Orbach, joining the cast as Detective Joe Fontana. In addition, Elisabeth Röhm, who played Serena Southerlyn for three and a half years, left the series midway through the 2004–2005 season; her successor was Annie Parisse, who played Alexandra Borgia.

In December 2004, Michael Imperioli was announced as a temporary replacement for Jesse L. Martin for the last four episodes of the 15th season. This was in order to allow Martin to fulfill a movie contract (the film version of Rent which Martin starred in on Broadway); Martin returned for the 16th season. In the show, Det. Ed Green is wounded in a shootout and takes medical leave in order to recuperate. Michael Imperioli appeared as the same character in a guest-starring role in a later episode in Season 16.

On April 26, 2006 Fox News reported that Parisse had quit her role as Alexandra Borgia on Law & Order amid rumors of the show's imminent cancellation. The show, however, has been renewed for a 17th season. This departure was followed, on May 30, 2006 by the announcement that Dennis Farina would be leaving the cast as well, in a story reported by the Associated Press. Farina will be replaced by Milena Govich, who played one of the assistant district attorneys on series creator Dick Wolf's drama series Conviction. This will be the first time that a woman has played one of the main investigating police officers. As of the beginning of the seventeenth season, Annie Parisse has been replaced by Alana de la Garza.

Past and present cast

"Law" and "Order" have been represented by the following casts:

Police

The Homicide Squad detectives and their supervisors of the New York Police Department's 27th Precinct, Manhattan, New York City. It is their job to investigate the crime, collect evidence, interview witnesses and then, when the evidence points to a suspect or suspects, place the suspect(s) under arrest.

Senior Homicide Detectives

Junior Homicide Detectives

Police Captains/Lieutenants

Prosecutors

The District Attorneys of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in New York City. It is their job to discuss deals, prepare the witnesses and evidence and conduct the people's case in the trial of the accused.

Executive Assistant District Attorneys

Assistant District Attorneys

Manhattan District Attorneys

Notes

  • Tabular depiction of character time lines
  • Jesse L. Martin's character has been on the show since 1999, but his character was not promoted to "senior partner" status until 2006 at the beginning of the show's 17th season. This is the first time in the series that the "junior partner" has become the "senior partner".
  • In the pilot episode, which was filmed in 1988 but aired as Season 1 episode 6 (1990), the role of Alfred Wentworth was played by Roy Thinnes. This is the only time this character has appeared, although Thinnes has returned to the series several times since then (in other roles).

Recurring supporting cast

CSU Technicians/Crime Lab Technicians

Medical Examiners

Police and District Attorney Psychiatrists/Psychologists

Other Police Detectives

Arraignment Judges

Judges

Defense Attorneys

Trivia

  • Carolyn McCormick had star billing for most of Season 3 into Season 4.
  • Many of the members of the recurring cast have appeared in other episodes playing different characters, a phenomenon known as "same actor, different character", which has been much discussed on Internet forums such as Jumping the Shark. Fans sometimes refer to these actors as "repeat offenders."

Episodes

Main article: List of Law & Order seasons

Awards and nominations

Awards won

Emmy Awards:

  • Outstanding Drama Series (1997)

Screen Actors Guild:

Edgar Awards:

Awards nominated

Emmy Awards:

  • Outstanding Drama Series (1992–1996, 1998–2002)
  • Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Sam Waterston (1997, 1999–2000)
  • Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Jerry Orbach (2000)
  • Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Michael Moriarty (1991–1994)
  • Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Steven Hill (1998–1999)
  • Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Benjamin Bratt (1998)

Golden Globe Awards:

  • Best TV Series-Drama (1992, 1994–1995, 1998–1999)
  • Best Performance by an Actor in a Drama Series-Drama Sam Waterston (1995)
  • Best Performance by an Actor in a Drama Series-Drama Michael Moriarty (1994)

Screen Actors Guild:

  • Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (1995–2002, 2004)
  • Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama Series Sam Waterston (1998)

DVD Releases

DVD Name Cover Art Release dates
Region 1 Region 2 Region 4
The Complete 1 Season The Complete First Season October 15 2002 June 16 2003 April 14 2003
The Complete 2 Season The Complete Second Season May 4 2004 February 28 2005 January 19 2005
The Complete 3 Season The Complete Third Season May 24 2005 November 21 2005 March 8 2006
The Complete 4 Season The Complete Fourth Season December 6 2005 July 17 2006 N/A
The Complete 14 Season The Complete Fourteenth Season September 14 2004 N/A N/A

Future of Law & Order

In late March 2006, the show witnessed a drop in ratings after NBC moved new episode showings to a different time slot. However, speculation still exists that it may reach the record for longest-running American prime time drama, currently held by Gunsmoke (1955–1975). According to news reports in 2005, the Law & Order franchise (including all the different series) generates around $1 billion in annual revenues for NBC Universal and its cable partners (a February 2005 NBC financial presentation states that NBC's share of this revenue (including syndication and advertising) is more than $550 million).

On April 5, 2006, the show returned to its old timeslot. This produced an improvement of ratings.

NBC announced on April 27 that all three shows under the Law & Order banner have been renewed through early 2007.

The show lost 1.8 million viewers in the sixteenth season. Both Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent were placed in new time slots for the season.

Related series

Spin-offs

The show's popularity has resulted in a Law & Order franchise with the creation of three other television dramas under the same brand: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). These two shows focus more on the police side of a case. A short-lived spinoff, Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005), which lasted only 12 episodes, focused almost entirely on courtroom drama, but was pulled off due to low ratings, becoming the first series of the franchise to be cancelled. Every spinoff uses the same theme music as the original series, albeit with differing arrangements (harder guitars for the Criminal Intent theme, for instance).

The latest and now canceled spinoff, Conviction, was only loosely related to the original. While the appearance of one character from Special Victims Unit and a cameo by Fred Dalton Thompson tied it into the same continuity, it did not bear the "Law & Order" title, nor did it use the Law & Order theme music and scene transitions. In addition, Conviction had no coverage of the police investigations and followed the prosecutors' entire lives, rather than just the cases they argue in court.

Crossovers

Law & Order crossed over six times with other NBC shows:

  • "Baby, It's You – Part I" (L&O ep 8–6), continued in "Baby, It's You – Part II" (Homicide: Life on the Street ep 6–5)
  • "Sideshow – Part I" (L&O ep 9–14), continued in "Sideshow – Part II" (Homicide: Life on the Street ep 7–15)
  • "Design" (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ep 7–2), continued in "Flaw" (L&O ep 16–2)

While not considered a cross over episode, Chris Noth appears in the before-the-credits sequence of the Homicide episode "Law and Disorder" (H:LotS ep 3–15). Taking place entirely in a Baltimore train station, Logan hands off a prisoner (John Waters) to Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher). The two detectives engage in some friendly banter about which city is better: New York City or Baltimore. They argue over topics such as Babe Ruth and Dorothy Parker.

TV movie

Main article: Exiled: A Law & Order Movie

There was also a TV movie called Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998), which featured the fate of Mike Logan (played by Chris Noth), one of the popular characters who departed the series. Noth has now returned in the role of Detective Mike Logan for the 2005–2006 season of Criminal Intent.

Reality series

Main article: Crime & Punishment

The producers crafted a reality television series, Crime & Punishment (also sometimes called Law & Order: Crime & Punishment) (2002), which focused on actual trials.

Computer games

In addition, there are three computer games of Law & Order in which the player investigates crimes and then prosecutes the resulting cases: There is also a computer game based on the "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" Franchise.

Books

True Stories of Law & Order (published 11/06 by Berkley/Penguin) chronicles 25 real cases that inspired some of the most popular "ripped for the headlines" episodes of the show. Authors Kevin Dwyer and Juré Fiorillo discuss famous cases including the Bernie Goetz subway shootings, the murder of Jennifer Levin in Central Park, and the San Francisco dog mauling of Diane Whipple, as well as lesser-know crimes such as the death by excorcism of Torrance Cottrell and the tragic murder of Anthony Riggs, a soldier who returned from the Gulf War only to be ambushed by a hitman hired by his wife. The book also includes interesting facts about police and legal procedure.

International Broadcasters

Country Alternate title/Translation TV Network(s) Series Premiere Weekly Schedule
United States United States NBC (first run) and TNT (syndication) September 13 1990 Friday 10:00pm ET
Argentina Argentina La Ley y el orden Universal Channel Monday 9:00pm ART
Australia Australia Network Ten (first run) and W.(syndication)
Brazil Brazil Lei & Ordem Bandeirantes and Universal Channel
Canada Canada La Loi et l'Ordre (French title) CTV & NBC (first run) and Bravo (syndication) September 13 1990 Friday 10:00pm ET
Denmark Denmark I lovens navn TV3 (first run), TV3+, Hallmark Channel (syndication)
Finland Finland Kova laki ("The Hard Law") YLE TV2 (first run) and
Hallmark Channel (syndication)		 Friday 10:05 pm
France France New York - Police judiciaire
("New York - Criminal Investigation Department")		 TF1 September 11 1994
Germany Germany Die Aufrechten – Aus den Akten der Straße RTL Television (first run) October 6 1992 Tuesday 11:10pm
Republic of Ireland Ireland RTÉ Two and Channel 6
Israel Israel Hok VaSeder Channel 1 and The Hallmark channel
Italy Italy Law & Order- I Due Volti Della Giustizia
("Law & Order- The Two Faces Of Justice")		 RaiDue, La7, Fox and Fox Crime
Netherlands The Netherlands VARA, Net 5, RTL 7 and Hallmark Channel
(Note: VARA still has the broadcasting rights,
however, they recently stopped airing Law & Order)
Norway Norway Lov og orden TV3 (first run), ZTV and
Hallmark Channel (syndication)
Philippines Philippines Crime/Suspense
Poland Poland Prawo i bezprawie
("Law & Lawlessness")		 TVP 1
Spain Spain Ley y orden ("Law and Order") LaSexta
Sweden Sweden I lagens namn
("In the Name of the Law")		 TV3 (first run), ZTV, TV6 and
Hallmark Channel (syndication)		 Sunday 11:10 pm
United Kingdom United Kingdom Sky One (original airing),
Sky Two (re-runs), Channel Five and
The Hallmark Channel (syndication)		 April 8 1991

Technical Information

Law & Order has been shot on film in widescreen format since at least 1996. As broadcasters convert the archived film to 1080i high definition, the show holds the distinction of being the oldest weekly series currently available in High-Definition Television (HD). This also presents the unique oddity of reruns in HD, providing more (previously cropped) material than when the episodes were first run broadcast in 4:3. Since 2002, first run episodes have also aired in HD.

See also

External links

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