Despite widespread production delays due to the pandemic, NBC has assured fans that the new Law & Order: SVU spinoff—Law & Order: Organized Crime—is still set to premiere this fall. The show marks the return of actor Chris Meloni's role as the beloved Detective Elliot Stabler after he exited SVU in 2012 over irreconcilable contract negotiations. The spinoff series centers around Stabler's position as the head of the NYPD division investigating organized crime.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has slowly been taking steps to safely reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down multiple industries—including Hollywood. Production delays have left networks like NBC scrambling to rearrange (or, in FOX's case, postpone) their programming schedules for the coming months. The CW announced just last month that it would be pushing back the release of its fall lineup from September to January in an effort to keep "the health and safety of our productions and creative partners front of mind."
In a surprising move today, NBC announced its fall schedule and vowed to premiere the Organized Crime spinoff by Fall's end. According to insider sources at Variety, while the network knows that preparing all shows for the typical September start date is unlikely, they feel secure enough in their revamped production schedules to deliver the premiere of Organized Crime, as well as new episodes of the hit drama series This Is Us, by mid-October. “Thanks to the ingenuity of our creative teams and our partner studios, NBC has assembled a remarkably stable schedule,” NBC Entertainment chairman Paul Telegdy explained in a statement. “With the reopening of the Universal lot for select productions this week, we are confident that our schedule will premiere intact later this fall.”
NBC scheduled Organized Crime to air on Thursdays at 10 PM in the time slot directly after its parent program, SVU. The highly anticipated spinoff has also garnered some negative media attention as of late. Law & Order creator Dick Wolf swiftly fired a writer from the show who published threatening Facebook posts regarding the recent LA protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death. Both Wolf and Meloni strongly condemned the writer's comments, with Wolf tweeting that he had terminated the employee and would "not tolerate this conduct, especially during our hour of national grief."
Apart from Organized Crime, NBC decided to postpone the premieres of other new series like Tina Fey's Mr. Mayor and Kenan Thomson's Kenan until the January midseason date or summer 2021. Additionally, returning shows such as Good Girls, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and Ellen’s Game of Games are also slated to return at a later date. Although their decision doesn't promise much new content this Fall, it seems like NBC is committed to delivering episodes of some of their fans' steady favorites while still offering the possibility of a new favorite in Law & Order: Organized Crime.
Source: Variety