Zaki Hasan May 12, 2021Updated: May 14, 2021, 7:22 am
Christopher Meloni (foreground) plays Detective Elliot Stabler in the new “Law & Order: Organized Crime.” Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC
Thirty-one years after the first “Law & Order” premiered on NBC, the Dick Wolf-created franchise continues to captivate audiences with “ripped from the headlines” stories about cops and crooks.
Having racked up more than 1,100 episodes through seven shows (with “Special Victims Unit” already the longest-running live-action prime-time series in U.S. television history), the reason for the franchise’s enduring appeal isn’t hard to divine: It’s TV comfort food, imagining a world where the worst crimes are tackled by the best detectives, and everything is neatly wrapped up in the span of one hour and five commercial breaks.