According to news releases, NBC Universal has chosen to cancel long-running drama Law & Order. Wikipedia claims the same fate for Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but their source has gone missing and I can find no corroboration. In exchange, we are to get a new spin-off set in Los Angeles.
The glory days of Lennie Briscoe investigating cases and Jack McCoy trying them were never coming back, but I actually thought the current detectives and attorneys were quite interesting and believable. I enjoyed the original series more than any of its spin-offs because of its unique split in focus between the police and the courts. While there are probably lots of reasons that viewership has dropped over the years, I think one of the greatest threats to Law & Order was competition from itself. By now the series has covered just about every possible interesting scenario multiple times. Between NBC, USA, and TNT, you could practically watch a rerun from one of the related franchises all day, every day. With such an extensive catalog (and my poor cultural memory) many are as good as a new episode. Add in all of the CSI franchises, NCIS, and the rest of the crime procedurals produced in recent years and there is a real glut of material.
Still, it would have been nice to see them make 21 seasons and take the record as longest-running drama. As for Criminal Intent, they essentially jettisoned the entire cast at the beginning of this season. Jeff Goldblum’s character is ok, but it was really only Vincent D’Onofrio’s portrayal of Robert Goren that made the show work. I would not be surprised to find that their ratings have fallen off a cliff in the last few months. Even Special Victims Unit has been going down hill recently, featuring cases filled with implausible and unexplained events. I assume the primary reason a version of Law & Order set in Los Angeles is expected to do well is that it will have a much lower casting budget than the original. Perhaps it will prove to be just as good, but it will be difficult to pique my interest in an entirely new cast of characters.