Law & Order was an American police procedural and legal drama series created by Dick Wolf for NBC. It ran from September 13, 1990 to May 24, 2010 in its original run and spawned four Law & Order-branded spin-offs, as well as several other spin-offs set outside the New York Police Department. There was also a 1998 TV movie, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie. It was later revived on September 22, 2022. It currently has 22 seasons.
Series summary[]
Each episode of Law & Order follows a complete criminal prosecution, from the initial investigation by police detectives to the subsequent prosecution, with the first half hour following the former and the last half hour the latter. The show rotated casts several times over the course of its 20-year run, but its most famous character probably remains detective Lennie Brisco, played by Jerry Orbach.
Spin-offs[]
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is based on the titular (and fictional) unit, which dealt with victims of sexual crimes. One of its main characters was John Munch (Richard Belzer), who was originally a regular character in Homicide: Life on the Street.
- Law & Order: Criminal Intent focused on high-profile cases and showed scenes from the private lives of the victims and criminals, giving the viewer an insight into their 'intent'.
- Law & Order: Trial by Jury focused entirely on the legal process as the prosecution and defense prepare and execute their cases.
- Law & Order: UK is based in London, United Kingdom and followed police and Crown Prosecutors.
- Law & Order: LA was a short-lived attempt to revive the Law & Order format, moving the action out of New York for the first time in the US franchise's history.
Westphall connections in Law & Order[]
A cab from the Sunshine Cab Company, which was the primary workplace setting of Taxi appears in the episode "Terminal".
The lead character of Seeing Things works for the fictional Toronto Gazette. This newspaper appeared in the episode "True North".
Westphall connections to Law & Order[]
- The New York Ledger was a newspaper featured frequently in Law & Order; the TV series Deadline followed the reporters that worked on it. The New York Sentinel was also a fictional paper which served as a rival to the Ledger and is seen frequently in other series.
- After that season three episode, seasons four, six and seven featured true crossover stories, with storylines starting in Law & Order and concluding in Homicide that followed immediately.
- Law & Order "Charm City" sees New York being attacked by a domestic terrorist who is then brought to Baltimore in Homicide "For God and Country"
- Law & Order and Homicde "Baby, it's You" begins with a body in New York and ends in Baltimore, where the victim was raped.
- Law & Order and Homicde "Sideshow" see the two teams investigating the murder of an important official.
- New York Undercover featured appearances by Emil Skoda (JK Simmons), a police psychologist who appeared in several Law & Order series.
- The Chicago franchise crossed over with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, bringing Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, and Chicago Justice with it.
- Ed Green appeared in the Andy Barker, P.I. episode "The Big No Sleep".
Non-Westphall connections[]
- Conviction is a spin-off of Law & Order but it outside the continuity of the Law & Order franchise.
- The Law & Order franchise has been sold to other countries, with Russian, French, British, and South African versions of Law & Order and its spin-offs. However, to date none of them have featured crossovers or references to the American franchise.
- Crime & Punishment was a documentary series following real-life lawyers in New York. Although it was closely linked with Law & Order, even using a remixed version of the theme tune, the real-life nature of the show means it cannot be included in the multiverse.