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Law and
Orders
Law &
Order is an American police procedural and legal drama
television series created by Dick Wolf. It has been broadcast on
NBC since its debut on September 13, 1990. Set in New York City,
the series mainly follows the professional lives of several
police officers and prosecutors who represent the public
interest in the criminal justice system. The characters
frequently encounter dilemmas and frustrations as cases go
through the stages of investigation, arrest, negotiation and
trial. Matters are rarely resolved easily or satisfactorily for
the people involved.
The success of the series has led to the creation of additional
shows under the Law & Order franchise. It is the longest-running
primetime drama currently on American television.
Broadcast
The pilot episode was produced to be sold to CBS in 1988, but
was rejected by that network. When NBC picked up the series in
1990, the pilot aired as episode six. The show is produced by
Universal Media Studios, formerly known as NBC Universal
Television Studio, Universal Television, and Studios USA. It has
been syndicated on other United States networks since 1994, as
well as worldwide. 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).
Law & Order has been shot on film in widescreen format since its
inception, as evidenced by syndication on TNT-HD. This also
presents the unique oddity that since reruns of older seasons
began broadcasting in HD in 2005, they have provided 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. Since May 9, 2008, TNT has broadcast Law and Order
episodes in widescreen.
The series is broadcast in Canada on CTV and Sister Station
A-Channel. Reruns can be seen regularly each weeknight and
weekday afternoons on TNT (U.S.) and weekdays at 1:00 p.m. and
weeknights at 11 p.m. 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 Five and repeats of the early seasons are being shown on the
Hallmark Channel. It was recently announced that the Law & Order
franchise would be screened on Five US.
In late March 2006, a shift of time slot resulted in a
significant drop in ratings, but a return to the original time
slot on April 5, 2006, triggered an improvement of ratings, For
the 2006-2007 season, both Law & Order and Criminal Intent were
placed in new time slots. In this season's time slot — Fridays
at 10pm — Law & Order averaged 9.3 million viewers, down again
from 11.6 million in the previous season. By comparison,
Criminal Intent averaged 9.7 million viewers on Tuesdays at 9pm
and SVU averaged 12.9 million viewers during its time slot.
On May 14, 2007, the network announced plans for an eighteenth
season with the series moving to Sundays at 8pm. Under NBC's
agreement, Law & Order premiered its 18th season on NBC in
January 2008 while new episodes of Criminal Intent now premiere
on NBC Universal's USA network with reruns slated to appear on
NBC. This is an unusual role reversal in NBC and USA's shared or
second window syndication arrangement. When the future of the
Law & Order staple was in doubt, TNT, which airs re-runs of the
show, emerged as a contender to become the new home either of
Law & Order or Law & Order Criminal Intent. The series was to
return mid-season on Sundays at 8pm but on December 3, after the
writers' strike had begun, NBC announced that it would begin
airing the already-filmed eighteenth-season episodes starting on
January 2, 2008, thus returning the series to Wednesday
evenings.
Despite its recent ratings troubles, producer Dick Wolf
expressed optimism about the show's future, also saying that his
"ultimate dream" is for the series to continue long enough to
surpass Gunsmoke (1955–1975) as the longest-running network
drama series on American television. Recently, NBC released its
2008-09 lineup, and Law & Order is included in the January - May
schedule, indicating the show will be back for a 19th season.
Format
The program generally follows a two-tiered format, with the
first portion of each episode devoted to the investigation of a
crime and the second portion depicting its prosecution. The
format is almost identical to a 1960s series titled Arrest and
Trial, although the similarities are considered to be
coincidental (though both shows are currently owned by NBC
Universal). Law & Order creator Dick Wolf was reportedly unaware
of them when he created his series. The series also bears
similarities to the 1970s British television series Law and
Order, written by dramatist G.F. Newman. In a 2008 interview,
Newman explained that he lent his Law and Order tapes to friend
Michael Mann, who was working on Miami Vice with Wolf at the
time. Mann then lent the tapes to Wolf, who created the Law &
Order franchise a few years later. Newman joked that Wolf owed
him $300 million for the format rights. Most Law & Order
episodes are self-contained, with only a few exceptions over the
many years of production.
The following statement, narrated by Steven Zirnkilton, is
spoken at the beginning of nearly every episode (but not those
shown on Five in Britain)
“ 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 cold open, lead-in of the show usually is a slice of life in
New York (walking a dog in Manhattan, jogging in Central Park,
etc.) unrelated to the main story until the character(s) in the
scene suddenly discover, witness, or become victims of a crime
(mostly murder). The scene cuts to the police's preliminary
crime scene examination wherein the featured detectives make
their first observations and proffer theories followed by a
witticism or two, before the title sequence begins.
The police are represented in the show by the police lieutenant
of Manhattan's fictional 27th Precinct and two homicide
detectives, a senior partner and a junior partner. The
detectives investigate the crime, collect evidence and interview
witnesses, then regularly report to the lieutenant. The evidence
leads to the arrest of one or more suspects. The matter then is
taken over by the prosecutors of the Manhattan District
Attorney's office, comprising the district attorney, the
executive assistant district attorney, and an assistant
prosecutor. They discuss deals, prepare the witnesses and
evidence, and conduct the people's case in the trial. Both the
detectives and prosecutors work with the medical examiner's
office, the crime laboratory, and psychiatrists from the police
and district attorney offices.
Unlike most legal dramas (e.g. Perry Mason), the proceedings are
from the prosecution's point of view and indicate that it can be
as difficult to convict the guilty as it is to clear the
innocent. The prosecution portion also is unusual in that it
shows more legal proceedings than just the trial. The second
half mostly opens with an arraignment and proceeds to trial
preparation; however, the show does, on occasion, deviate from
format and centers either on indictment proceedings before a
grand jury, a motion hearing, jury selection, or an allocution
upon entering a plea of guilty, usually as a part of a plea
bargain. It is very uncommon for legal dramas to show grand jury
proceedings; this usually is 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
person and often end with a guilty plea and allocution to
quickly conclude the show.
Often the plot of an initial portion of an episode resembles a
recognizable aspect of an actual case, such as the 1998 episode
"Tabloid", wherein a woman is killed in a car crash after being
chased by a gossip reporter, similarly to Princess Diana's death
in August 1997. This "ripped from the headlines" theme is
reflected in the opening credits sequence that evolves from
newspaper halftones to high-resolution photos. The rest of the
plot, however, usually diverges significantly from the actual
events that may have inspired the episode. Promotional
advertisements of episodes with close real-life case parallels
often use the "ripped from the headlines" phrase, although a
textual disclaimer, within the actual episode, emphasizes that
the story and characters are fictional. This format lends itself
to exploring different outcomes or motives that similar events
could have had under other circumstances.
Because of the format's nature, the detectives rarely encounter
a simple murder where the murderer does little to hide his or
her guilt (actually very common). Instead, the detectives often
have few or no good clues — they might not know the victim's
identity — and must chase several dead ends before finding a
likely suspect. Towards the middle of a show, the police begin
working with the prosecutors to make the arrest, and an
arraignment scene follows. The police may reappear to testify in
court or to arrest another 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.
Virtually all episodes employ motions to suppress evidence as a
plot device, and most of these end with evidence or statements
being suppressed, often on a technicality, that provide a
dramatic obstacle to continued prosecution. This formulaic
device begins with the service of the motion to the ADAs, often
by the defense attorney, follows with argument and case
citations of precedent before a judge in some setting, and
concludes with visual reaction of the losing attorney, usually
Jack McCoy.
Another dramatic staple occurs either during a confession to
police, or at trial, or a rationalization of the defendant's
actions at trial, guilt notwithstanding. Whether it is given as
an account of the crime, by a witness, or a trial confession, by
the defendant, it emphasizes the raw humanity of the event,
sometimes eliciting sympathy for the defendant. Another dramatic
tradition is when the prosecutors order a particular suspect
arrested and the scene immediately cuts to the detectives
barging into whatever activity the suspect is engaged to make
the arrest.
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