The usual summer TV hiatus has extended well into the fall in the 2023 TV schedule for NBC and other major broadcast networks, which has meant a lot of reruns in primetime. Due to the WGA writers strike and ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors strike, the three Law & Order shows are among those that don't have any new episodes yet for the 2023-2024 TV season, and NBC kicked off the franchise's fall run with repeats of Law & Order: SVU. That has now shifted to the original Law & Order, but I find myself just missing Christopher Meloni's Law & Order: Organized Crime for a couple of reasons.
How NBC Has Been Airing Reruns
NBC aired four episodes of SVU to start the fall season, starting with the three-part BX9 arc and concluding with Bradley Whitford playing his second Special Victims character. Then, on November 2, the network aired the "Fear and Loathing" episode of Law & Order that premiered back in February, and the next franchise repeat in November will be another episode of the original series.
At the time of writing, NBC hasn't announced any Law & Order dates beyond the November 9 repeat, but the network seems to be rotating through the shows similarly to what One Chicago is doing on Wednesday nights. But if NBC is going to rotate through all three of the L&O shows, when is Organized Crime going to get its shot?
Why Law & Order And SVU Make Me Miss Organized Crime
Organized Crime admittedly isn't my favorite of the L&O shows, as that honor will likely always go to SVU in light of how many of the show's 500+ episodes I've watched. Still, seeing SVU get four weeks of reruns followed by at least two weeks of Law & Order makes it hard to overlook that it's been a while since we've seen the Organized Crime Control Bureau.
I really started to notice their absence during SVU's BX9 arc repeat, starting with the one thing that still doesn't make sense about Benson and Stabler, and getting stronger with Chris Meloni getting what amounted to a cameo as Stabler for the now-infamous near-miss kiss with Mariska Hargitay's Benson. Seeing him made me want to see the rest of the team, not least because it would be nice to rewatch episodes from before Jamie Whelan's tragic death.
Sure, I went ahead and rewatched the Law & Order: OC pilot not too long ago (and decided Stabler giving Benson the letter is way worse when looking back), but Organized Crime isn't available streaming for fans with Peacock Premium subscriptions like both Law & Order and SVU, or with a Hulu subscription like SVU. Fans just can't stream the show, and it'd be nice if OC gets a turn of NBC repeats before the end of the year.
I do wonder if the show that usually airs at 10 p.m. ET is actually too dark to be broadcast at 8 p.m. ET, but I'd also say that SVU's cases are more disturbing than what the cops of Law & Order and Organized Crime usually deal with. It's worth noting that One Chicago hasn't aired any repeats of Chicago Med yet this fall as it rotates between its three shows; perhaps OC could come back to primetime on Thursdays when Med returns to Wednesdays.
For now, we can just wait and see if Thursdays will see some OC episodes as the wait continues for the SAG-AFTRA strike to end.
