Why ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Should Be Renewed for Season 5

Meredith Jacobs March 25, 2024, 6:00 pm

Danielle Moné Truitt as Sgt. Ayanna Bell, Christopher Meloni as Det. Elliot Stabler — 'Law & Order: Organized Crime' - Season 4, Episode 2 — Ralph Bavaro/NBC

Dick Wolf shows have become a staple of NBC‘s primetime lineup, taking over two nights a week, but as it stands now, one of them might not be back for the 2024-2025 season. The network announced that Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Law & Order, and Law & Order: SVU have all been renewed for next season. However, the fate of Law & Order: Organized Crime remains in discussion at the network.

Organized Crime premiered in 2021, with Christopher Meloni returning to the franchise following his SVU exit after the Season 12 finale. “There are certain things that have transpired in my life that made me more comfortable in going back into this world,” he told TV Insider ahead of his show’s premiere. Meloni’s Detective Elliot Stabler has gone from working SVU cases to being part of the Organized Crime Control Bureau, led by Sergeant Ayanna Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt), and these investigations offer a very different kind of show. Below, we detail five reasons why NBC should renew Organized Crime for a fifth season.

1. It breaks the franchise mold with serialized stories.

Unlike Law & Order and SVU, which mostly rely on standalone investigations, Organized Crime has, since its inception, been about multi-episode arcs. We get to know the players in the different worlds of the cases, explore interesting dynamics between Stabler and those characters (when he is and isn’t undercover), and truly follow a case from beginning to end—and beyond. Sure, we enjoy the one-and-done nature of the other shows, but there’s also something special about getting to truly immerse ourselves in these stories.

2. Stabler fits better in Organized Crime than SVU.

We have to say it: Now that we have Stabler back on a Law & Order show, we don’t want to say goodbye to him again. And sure, Meloni could always return to SVU—though doing so would certainly make things even more complicated between Stabler and Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay). It’s one thing for partners to have a will they/won’t they slow burn romance, but it’s another to do that with a boss and a member of her team. Plus, with what Stabler has gone through (his wife’s murder alone), we can’t help but admit that it’s a better fit for him to work Organized Crime cases (and be in that dark, gritty world) than SVU ones (which require a softer touch).

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3. We don’t want to lose Bell and Jet.

The unit has changed a bit over the years, but the people who have remained stable around Stabler are Bell and Detective Jet Slootmaekers (Ainsley Seiger). Even if Stabler could go back to SVU, he can’t take the two of them with him (not that they’d even want to transfer), and we’ve grown to love the dynamic at the OCCB. Bell is a boss, and we want to continue to see her in charge, and no one can do what Jet can at a computer.

4. We love getting to explore the Stabler family.

There’s no way that we could’ve learned as much as we have—and still are—about Stabler’s family (and specifically his father) without this spinoff, and we love how much we get to see Ellen Burstyn as his mother Bernadette and Dean Norris and Michael Trotter as his brothers Randall and Joe Jr.