What is going on with Law & Order: Organized Crime? That’s a question that legal drama devotees have been asking for weeks amid speculation that the Christopher Meloni-starring spin off could be in the cancellation cards.
This led to viewers petitioning to save the series in which Elliot Stabler grows a beard to go undercover, albeit with not enough octopus. Generally speaking, NBC has been renewing Organized Crime at the same time that Law & Order: SVU gets re-upped, but for some reason, the fifth season of the Stabler series has hit a bump in the renewal road because, as Variety initially reported, both SVU and the revived original Law & Order got the call for more while Organized Crime sat on the sidelines.
Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva now reports an update, which is that NBC is considering going straight to streaming with Stabler & Friends:
I hear that if NBC opts not to proceed with Season 5 of Organized Crime, the series could migrate to Peacock, giving the NBCUniversal streamer an original Wolf drama series to go with the Wolf library and next-day runs of the Wolf Entertainment NBC series that are among the platform’s most viewed titles.
According to sources, there are ongoing conversations about Organized Crime potentially moving to Peacock for Season 5. There is a blueprint for that — another series in the Law & Order franchise that started on NBC, Criminal Intent, made a successful transition to another platform, running on USA Network for four additional seasons after the initial six on NBC
Granted, this isn’t the greatest news for viewers who enjoy uninterrupted NBC Thursday nights, but heck, moving Meloni to streaming isn’t a bad idea and could boost Peacock subscriptions. Further, there’s no rule against him making future appearances on SVU to make more smoldering eyes at Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson. Hopefully, whatever call that NBCUniversal decides to make, they will do so soon. The people are growing antsy.
(Via Deadline)