"Law & Order" Ends its Long Run on May 24
NBC announced last week that Law & Order will end its 20-year run this season. Law & Order is the longest running crime drama on American prime time television and is tied with Gunsmoke for longest-running drama series. (Technically, Law & Order [Sept. 13, 1990 to May 24, 2010] outdistanced Gunsmoke [Sept 10, 1955 - March 31, 1975].)
Created by Dick Wolf, the series is known for its two-part narrative approach: in the first half-hour, the criminal investigation and in the second half-hour, the prosecution. Dick Wolf revealed why this approach was taken in his Archive of American Television Interview:
In 1990, there were virtually no hour shows in syndication. Syndication was sold in half hour blocks. There were comedies, comedies, more comedies. No hours. There was a decided interest on the part of Universal and me and everybody who was trying to make money in television to figure out a way to be able to split hour shows into half hours for syndication. Nobody had ever figured out, though, that since syndication was five days a week - if you started [splitting Law & Order episodes] on Monday, you'd have Monday, Tuesday; Wednesday, Thursday; Friday, Monday - you'd never have a week that worked. Luckily, we never had to go to that extreme. It never became an issue, the hour shows came back.... It was a decision that was pragmatic rather than creative, then it turned out to be a situation that was enormously creatively freeing.