Law & Order franchise

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The term "Law & Order franchise" is commonly used to describe a number of related American television programs created by Dick Wolf and broadcasted on NBC, all of which deal with some aspect of the New York City criminal justice system.

Law & Order franchise
Original series

Special Victims Unit
Criminal Intent
Trial by Jury

Franchise characters

Conviction
Exiled
Crime & Punishment

Shared people and resources in a common fictional setting are the connecting links between the shows, e.g., Hudson University and the New York Ledger tabloid newspaper. Many supporting characters, such as district attorneys, psychologists and medical examiners are also shared among the shows. Occasionally, crossovers of main characters and/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 shows are filmed almost entirely in the New York City area which is unusual as nowadays most television dramas (with the exception of some daytime soap operas) and many other network shows are taped in the Los Angeles area, even those shows which are set in New York City. With some frequency, actors have appeared on the various series that make up the franchise, usually as different (sometimes very different) characters. This is to be expected since filming occurs in the New York City area and thus draw from the same pool of actors. Some prominent examples of the same actor playing different roles in different episodes are Diane Neal playing a female rapist in an earlier season of SVU before becoming the ADA (assistant district attorney) for that series, Annabella Sciorra playing a criminal defense attorney in Trial by Jury and later Detective Mike Logan's (Chris Noth) partner in Criminal Intent, as well as Jerry Orbach playing a defense attorney on the original series before joining it as Det. Lennie Briscoe (who despises criminal lawyers), and Ice-T playing a pimp known as Seymour 'Kingston' Stockton in the franchise's only movie Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, before taking on the role of Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).

The music, style and credits of the shows tend to be similar. The original Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent arguably contain the most visual similarities within the franchise. Past episodes are highly successful in syndication with TNT, USA Network, and Bravo! showing episodes sometimes up to 6 times a day.

Contents

Series

Current Series

Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Past Series

Foreign Adaptations

Near the end of 2006, Global American Television and the Russian television studio Studio 2V announced a deal with NBC, Wolf Films, and NTV to adapt original Law and Order scripts to the Russian justice system. Dmitry Brusnikin will both direct and star in the Russian spin-off. [1]

Related shows

TV movie

The Law & Order franchise has one TV movie, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998) starring Chris Noth as Mike Logan.

Characters

Current franchise cast as of 2005, part 1
Current franchise cast as of 2005, part 1
Current franchise cast as of 2005, part 2
Current franchise cast as of 2005, part 2

Current characters in the franchise

Past characters in the franchise

Crossovers between series

As of 2006, there are only seven crossovers in which characters from one L&O series meet characters from another L&O series. This is excluding characters who have switched shows (such as Don Cragen and Mike Logan) and characters which the franchise shares among the shows, such as medical examiners and district attorneys. The crossover episodes are the following:

  • Episode "...Or Just Look Like One" Law & Order: SVU
  • Episode "Hysteria" Law & Order: SVU
  • Episode "Fool's for Love" Law and Order
  • Episode "Entitled" Law & Order: SVU / "Entitled, Part 2" Law & Order
  • Episode "Design" Law & Order: SVU / "Flaw" Law & Order
  • Episode "Tombstone" Law & Order / "Skeleton" Law & Order: TbJ
  • Episode "Night" Law & Order: SVU / "Day" Law & Order: TbJ
  • Episode "Poison" Law & Order: CI

Earlier, Law & Order had made three crossovers with another NBC show, Homicide: Life on the Street (1993):

  • Episode "Charm City" Law & Order / "For God and Country" Homicide: LotS
  • Episode "Baby, it's You" Law & Order / "Baby, it's You, Part 2" Homicide: LotS
  • Episode "Sideshow" Law & Order / "Sideshow" Homicide: LotS

Contradicting the assumption of one universe for the franchise, sharp-eyed observers will occasionally see actors playing different roles across series. For example, Philip Bosco has played a defense attorney in one series while playing a different character, a judge, in another series. And Ned Eisenberg has played a defense attorney in one series while being a different character, a murder suspect in another series.

Parodies

Other pop culture references

  • In an episode of Cyberchase, during the "Cyberchase for Real" segment, Harry finds that an advertised stain remover doesn't work like it said, so he had a vision of him putting the advertiser on trial. You can hear part of the Law & Order theme music being played at the beginning of the vision.
  • A My Gym Partner's a Monkey episode is entitled "Law & Odor".
  • In an episode of The X-Files set in 1989 ("Unusual Suspects"), Det. John Munch (played by Richard Belzer) appears in the Baltimore police department.
  • In the Arrested Development episode, "Exit Strategy", Richard Belzer appears as Prof. John Munch.
  • An Arthur episode entitled "Flaw and Order" steals the notorious Law and Order sound, as well as the black screen with location/date/time of the scenes.

Games

There are three computer games based on the original Law & Order. The player must investigate crimes and then prosecute the resulting cases:

There is also one computer game based on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. While it shares many similarities with the other Law & Order games, the Criminal Intent game focuses more on investigations and interrogations, not prosecution.

Trivia

  • The font used in the series distinctive logos is Friz Quadrata.
  • The voiceovers in the opening of each series were done by Steven Zirnkilton
  • Some fans refer to the original Law & Order as "Olo!", to Special Victims Unit as LO:SVU (pronounced "Los Vu"), and to Criminal Intent as LO:CI (pronounced "Lo Chi").

External links

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