Here’s why Milena Govich’s Law & Order character Nina Cassady was such a groundbreaking addition to the show. Created by TV heavyweight Dick Wolf, crime drama Law & Order ran for twenty seasons between 1990 and 2010 and is the show that kick-started NBC’s robust Law & Order franchise. The series blended elements of police procedural and courtroom drama, with the first half of each episode focusing on a team of NYPD homicide detectives investigating a case and the latter half focusing on the prosecution of the responsible party.
Law & Order featured several different detectives over the course of its 20 seasons on the air. The longest-serving detective was Jerry Orbach’s Lennie Briscoe who appeared in 274 episodes, followed by Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin) and Mike Logan (Chris Noth), who notched up a total of 198 and 111 episodes, respectively. Other Law & Order detectives include Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt), Dennis Farina’s Joe Fontana and Kevin Bernard who was played by Anthony Anderson.
A quick glance at the characters mentioned above and it’s clear there’s something of a male bias when it comes to the show's detectives. That all changed when Milena Govich joined Law & Order in its seventeenth season as Nina Cassady – a groundbreaking character in that she was the first and only female detective in the show’s 20-year history. There were, of course, plenty of other female characters on Law & Order like lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), assistant district attorneys Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon) or Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Röhm) – but not one female detective character until Nina came along.
Milena Govich’s first Law & Order episode was the season 17 premiere “Fame” in which it was revealed she’d been promoted from police officer to detective following a well-publicized incident at a beauty salon which earned her the nickname “Detective Beauty Queen.” She was partnered with detective Green as Joe Fontana’s replacement and frequently butted heads with lieutenant Van Buren over her lack of experience and unorthodox methods.
Unfortunately, Milena Govich’s Law & Order character only lasted for one season. She last played Cassady in the season 17 finale “The Family Hour” during which the detective found herself in hot water with Van Buren after botching the interrogation of a former senator suspected in a murder. In the following season, Cassady was replaced by a male detective named Cyrus Lupo played by Jeremy Sisto who – funnily enough – had a cameo in Milena Govich’s last Law & Order episode as a completely unrelated character. No explanation was given as to why Nina left the squad either, nor was she ever mentioned again.