Law & Order: Organized Crime has become the odd man out at NBC. The Law & Order spinoff has been an ideal vehicle for veteran character Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), but the diminishing ratings led the network to move it to its streaming service, Peacock.
It's sad in so much as Organized Crime's release outlet will change the Law & Order block that NBC has run out for the past several years on Thursday nights. Barring the season 5 premiere of OC, this primetime block will feature only two Law & Order shows. But this may actually prove to be a good thing when it comes to the creative direction of the Stabler-led spinoff.
Organized Crime will have less censorship on Peacock
During a recent column, TV Insider reporter Matt Roush fielded questions about the ways in which Law & Order: Organized Crime will change upon transitioning to Peacock. It turns out, the show will have much more leeway when it comes to utilizing strong language and violence than it did when it was on NBC.
"A show set in a violent milieu like Organized Crime may be better off allowing its characters to speak and swear (when necessary) freely," Roush noted. This is huge for a show with a protagonist as gritty and oftentimes irate as Stabler. In the past, the character has had to adhere to network censorship, but now, playing with the more flexible rules of Peacock programming, he will be able to say and do more than he ever could before.
The series could lean into its serialized storytelling
This note dovetails nicely with the reason NBC initially gave for moving Organized Crime to Peacock. The network suspected that part of the reason the spinoff fared worse than its peers in terms of the ratings was because it relied on darker subject matter and serialized storytelling. Organized Crime is the Law & Order show least beholden to the "case of the week" format that initially made us fall in love with the franchise.
Peacock will not only give viewers the opportunity to experience even darker subject matter, since the producers and writers will be able to delve further into criminal psychopathy, but it will provide a bingeable model that will benefit the aforementioned serialized storytelling. We could be looking at a show that winds up feeling the most modern and immediate of the Law & Order franchise, and we are here for it.
Law & Order: Organized Crime returns Thursday, April 17 on both NBC and Peacock.