Law & Order Thursdays, as if they weren’t already stressful enough, are now going to offer a third show: The original procedural that started it all. Or, well. Sort of. The classic series is being rebooted for its 21st season, with both some familiar and not-so-familiar faces.
We knew it was only a matter of time before Dick Wolf took over NBC’s entire Thursday lineup. After all, as an unofficial (official, at this point?) Wolf Entertainment stan site, we already cover FBI Tuesdays on CBS and One Chicago Wednesdays on NBC. Then, of course, there’s the simultaneous blast and need for a padded room that Benson and Stabler’s journey on Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime is already causing us on Thursday nights, so why not make it a trifecta to match the other two Wolf stan weeknights?
(ABC and FOX, beware: Dick’s probably coming for your your Mondays and Fridays at some point…)
But…the classic version? As a reboot? We get that reboots are on trend and all, but…If we needed a full Thursday of “dun, dun,” though, we would’ve been more excited about the For the Defense version that got unceremoniously dun-dumped…not…this.
Is rebooting Law & Order, original flavor, just a way to make sure Mariska Hargitay never, ever retires? Certainly, if there’s any chance of the classic series breaking the many records she’s set in terms of longevity and just outright badassery, she’s not taking that one lying down, right? Would we want her to? Nah. She is the undisputed queen of this universe, and that’s that on that. (Unless she decides otherwise, of course.)
But we’re totally going to watch anyway because we are weak for our Wolf Entertainment overlords—and also, crossovers are a thing. For the record, though, it’ll never be the same without Jerry Orbach (may his memory be a blessing).
But, well…there’s casting news now…about Hugh Dancy. And like, first of all, the TV gods got their wires crossed on this one.
But look: Even if we were only slightly into it before because of our Wolf stan tendencies, we’re kinda…all in now? Because Hugh Dancy.
How could we not be? Give us Mads Mikkelsen as the perp of the week sometime, and we’ll even pretend like our TV overlords at NBC actually got our message about saving Hannibal and granted us all our wishes.
And as long as we’re talking about things we want in this Law & Order reboot, let’s just go ahead and free Jesse L. Martin from The Flash already. If Elliot Stabler could come back to the force after ghosting us for 10 years, Ed Green can totally work his way back in…somehow. And since Anthony Anderson is back as Kevin Bernard, who took over as Lupo’s partner after Green left after being part of an investigation against Ed, that could open up some cool opportunities for drama.
But also, for the record, we’re still mostly here for Hugh Dancy. Just wanted to be clear there. I mean, have y’all seen him? Exactly.
Law & Order classic returns to NBC on Thursday, February 24, 2022.
Not sure what their plan here is. I have not seen any information as to when they plan to air new episodes and I realize they are beginning to put the cast back together. With SVU and Organized Crime, I’m not so sure I want to see another Law and Order in the fall lineup. If they brought this back to give us 15 episodes airing between June and August rather than seeing re-runs, I’d be all for that.