Law & Order season 25 kicked off with another example of an unwanted trend in the NBC police procedural’s revival. Though Law & Order premiered in 1990, it ended its original run in 2010. 12 years later, NBC and TV procedural mastermind Dick Wolf revived the series with some of its previous cast intact.
Since 2022, when NBC revived the show, Law & Order has largely adhered to its original format, beginning with an investigation by detectives from the Major Crimes unit and concluding with a trial prosecuted by the District Attorney’s office. While the format has remained the same, the cast has not.
Law & Order season 25 kicks off with the team down a person.
Law & Order Season 25 Doesn’t Have A 2nd Detective
Between the filming of Law & Order seasons 24 and 25, Mehcad Brooks decided not to return to the series as Detective Shaw. Brooks had already missed several episodes in the previous season due to other filming commitments, and all reports indicate the decision for him to leave the show was an amicable split from NBC.
Though the Law & Order season 25 premiere writes him out with a simple line about him taking a job in Brooklyn, the show made no immediate move to fill his empty spot. That means Law & Order will only have one primary detective in Reid Scott’s Detective Vincent Riley for the beginning of season 25.
This is actually a huge change for the show. Law & Order has always operated with a two-person team of detectives. Even the spinoff series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, follows that general rule, seeing two pairs of detectives operating on the main SVU team in nearly every season.
Law & Order season 25 marks the first time the show did not immediately fill the shoes of a departing detective, kicking off with Detective Riley mostly operating on his own.
Recurring character Detective Violet Yee (Connie Shi) does accompany him to question one person, and completes her usual work of examining surveillance camera footage, but she is never mentioned to be taking Shaw’s spot. That possibility certainly exists if producers want to up Shi to a series regular instead of recurring cast member.
Law & Order Has Been Struggling Keeping A Stable Ensemble Since Its Return
Mehcad Brooks leaving the series is hardly the first time the Law & Order revival has lost a cast member. Law & Order has struggled to maintain a core cast since it returned to television in 2021.
Though franchise staple Sam Waterston helped to kick off the revival, he left a few seasons into the run. Likewise, Anthony Anderson, who reprised his role from the flagship series in 2012, did not stay long. His detective spot was actually filled by Mehcad Brooks.
The original Law & Order run that began in 1990 was not without its share of rotating cast members either. When Chris Noth left, Benjamin Bratt joined. When Bratt left the series, Jesse L. Martin joined. During the bulk of that shifting, however, Jerry Orbach remained on the show as a senior detective, helping stabilize the changes.
The revival series has not had that same kind of stability.
|
Actor |
Law & Order Character |
Revival Seasons |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Anthony Anderson |
Detective Kevin Bernard |
21 |
|
|
Jeffrey Donovan |
Detective Frank Cosgrove |
21-22 |
|
|
Sam Waterston |
District Attorney Jack McCoy |
21-22 |
|
|
Camryn Manheim |
Lieutenant Kate Dixon |
21-23 |
|
|
Mehcad Brooks |
Detective Jalen Shaw |
22-24 |
|
Only Hugh Dancy as Nolan Price and Odelya Halevi as Samantha Maroun remain from NBC’s first cast lineup for the Law & Order revival. That means, outside of the Executive Assistant District Attorney and the Assistant District Attorney assigned to Major Crimes, every other investigative or legal position in the show has changed at least once in four years.
How Law & Order’s Casting Problems Hinder It From Truly Becoming Great
Law & Order is a television institution. Despite being a crime procedural centered on murder cases, the show and the franchise as a whole have been TV comfort food for its audience for decades. The rotating cast is stopping the revival from truly becoming as great as its predecessor or contemporaries.
When looking at the Law & Order franchise as a whole, the series that has become the most popular, experienced the most longevity on the air, and gets the most critical recognition is Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. That is partly due to the consistency in its cast.
For the first 12 seasons of the show, the series largely had the same five principal actors, with other recurring actors coming and going around them. The chemistry was there, but the group had time to build a rapport, the writers had time to build characterization, and the backstories had time to be fleshed out.
That allowed the SVU audience to get to know the characters and connect with them in a way they have not for the Law & Order revival. Even when SVU lost multiple series regulars between seasons 12 and 15, it built a stable cast beyond that handful of actors that has remained for another decade.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is now the best police procedural on television. It is also the longest-running primetime show and boasts series lead Mariska Hargitay as the actress who has played the same character in primetime television for the most episodes – ever.
Procedurals are built on the idea that an audience member can tune in at any time during the show’s run and still become a loyal viewer without having watched everything that came before. That can still be true while allowing long-term audience members the chance to connect with characters.
Law & Order does not suddenly need to shift to serialized storytelling, but it does need to find the right combination of cast members and chemistry to draw people in and keep them for the long haul. The interesting mysteries are not enough.
That’s evident in the Law & Order season 25 premiere, which allows ADA Maroun’s (Halevi) personal connection to the case of the week to help drive the story. That connection, and the friction between her and Price (Dancy) as a result, helped elevate the episode.
It’s no coincidence that is the two attorneys who are able to do that as the now longest-running cast members of Law & Order’s 2021 chapter. If Law & Order does not find a way to stabilize its cast, it’s going to continue to struggle to connect with its audience.
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- Release Date
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September 13, 1990
- Showrunner
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Rick Eid
- Directors
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Constantine Makris, Edwin Sherin, Jace Alexander, David Platt, Matthew Penn, Martha Mitchell, Don Scardino, Christopher Misiano, Jean de Segonzac, Michael Pressman, Daniel Sackheim, Alex Chapple, Fred Berner, Fred Gerber, Gloria Muzio, James Frawley, Jim McKay, Vincent Misiano, Michael W. Watkins, Vern Gillum, Alex Hall, Dann Florek, Darnell Martin, David Grossman
- Writers
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René Balcer, Matt Witten, David Slack, Aaron Zelman, David Wilcox, Morgan Gendel, Pamela J. Wechsler, Lynne E. Litt, Marc Guggenheim, Stephanie Sengupta, Scott Gold, Walon Green, Gerry Conway, Sean Jablonski, Nick Santora, Chris Levinson, Christine Roum, Gordon Rayfield, Hall Powell, Keith Eisner, Julie Martin, Gia Gordon, Joe Gannon, Jonathan Collier
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S. Epatha Merkerson
Lieutenant Anita Van Buren