Narrowly avoiding the indignity of being canceled by NBC twice in as many decades, Dick Wolf’s Law & Order has just barely secured a 26th season for itself. This is per Deadline, which reports that the series—which currently stars Maura Tierney, Reid Scott, and David Ajala as the police right on the cusp of being allowed to investigate crimes, and Hugh Dancy, Odelya Halevi, and Tony Goldwyn as the district attorneys holding on for dear life to their right to prosecute the offenders—has narrowly slid its way off the bubble for a last-minute renewal.
The news comes amidst fairly dark times for the Law & Order universe, with NBC and Peacock having recently declined to stay in the Elliot Stabler business with the cancellation of Law & Order: Organized Crime. And while Mariska Hargitay’s Special Victims Unit will presumably keep going until the heat death of the universe—and, even then, we’ll probably need a TV series about Space Detectives looking very solemn while prosecuting Cosmic Sex Offenders—the ostensible flagship of the franchise was reportedly in much more dire straits. As noted by Deadline, Law & Order was one of the last existing NBC series to get a verdict this year, as the network balances its efforts to run a more robust pilot season in 2026 versus its commitments to its current roster of shows. The network is expected to roll out its fall lineup to advertisers later this week—so time was definitely getting tight.
Law & Order originally went off the air back in May of 2010, survived at the time by SVU, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Criminal Intent, and the extremely short-lived Law & Order: Los Angeles. It came back in 2021; true to form, its very first episode did a little ripping straight from the headlines, with a murder victim clearly patterned on the then-recently convicted Bill Cosby. The show has trucked along on Thursday nights ever since, with ratings reportedly lagging just a bit behind SVU‘s. (Not to mention Wolf’s Chicago franchise of shows.) Deadline notes that it’s not clear what cuts L&O may be facing for its 26th season, as the ongoing belt-tightening in the TV business takes an especial toll on long-running shows.
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