Season 24 of Law & Order will wrap in the 2025 TV schedule on May 15 with an episode that should be a big one for Price and Maroun in particular, with the added perk for fans that they don't have to worry about hitting the milestone 25th season. The NBC drama will be back for Season 25 no matter how the Season 24 finale wraps, and it turns out that the series had been doing a lot better than I thought prior to NBC's renewal.
The viewership numbers for the twenty-fourth season reminded me of what one star told CinemaBlend earlier this year about what has changed this year, and I can't help but wonder if part of the boost comes from adapting to the times. But first things first!
How Law & Order Is Doing With Audiences
While Law & Order is one of the most recognizable brands on television, the original series just hasn't generated the most buzz in recent seasons, although I at least partly chalk that up to Law & Order: SVU's Benson and Law & Order: Organized Crime's Stabler as longtime fan favorites within the franchise contrasted with Law & Order's years off the air.
Still, the average viewership numbers in Live+7 day totals for the original show at the end of 2024 placed it squarely in seventh place among NBC's scripted options, behind the three One Chicago shows (with Fire, Med, and P.D. respectively in the #1, #2, #3 spots), SVU at #4, Brilliant Minds at #5, and The Irrational (which was recently cancelled despite optimism for the future) coming in at #6. At the time, TVLine reported that the average of 4.83 million viewers was a drop of 16% from Season 23.
So, while Season 24 was beating Found at the end of last year, it didn't really seem to be crushing. As it turns out, I just wasn't looking at the right set of numbers, as NBC released some more impressive totals in early May along with the Season 25 renewal. In Live+35 (a.k.a. number of people who tuned in within 35 rather than seven days after the original broadcast), Law & Order is actually up 112% over last year and has been experiencing its best season streaming among viewers with a Peacock subscription. In contrast, SVU is only up 5% over last season in Live+35. Streaming to the rescue!
Does this mean that Law & Order would beat One Chicago in Live+35? Not necessarily, but it certainly means that I underestimated how many people were still tuning in to the series. They're just not all doing it within the first week.
Reid Scott's 'Genuine' Approach
Season 24 kicked off with a big change as ER's Maura Tierney debuted as Lt. Jessica Brady, replacing Camryn Manheim's Lt. Kate Dixon. There have been some less obvious shifts as well, such as Law & Order getting a bit funnier this season. That's not to say that Riley and Shaw are TV's newest Keystone Cops or Price and Maroun are getting into silly shenanigans in the courtroom, but just as Mehcad Brooks previewed ahead of the season, there have been more moments of levity to break up the dark storylines.
So, when I spoke with Reid Scott, who plays Det. Riley, about his character getting "rather triggered" earlier this spring, I also noted that I thought Law & Order had gotten funnier this year, and he responded:
Thank you. [laughs] I look for every opportunity they give me to try to inject some humor. Granted, it's typically very wry humor, or I call it 'Orbachian.' I'm really, really flattered to be following in that man's footsteps. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. We look for the humor where we can. I also just find that genuine. I've done a fair amount of research on this show, and all the detectives and police officers I've talked to, they've got great senses of humor, and a lot of that humor comes from covering the stress and the trauma that these guys are experiencing on a day by day basis.
Not only is Scott following in the footsteps of Law & Order icon Jerry Orbach, who ranks among the actors who appeared in the most episodes of the franchise after twelve seasons as Det. Lennie Briscoe, but adding some humor is true to life for the TV show. Real-life detectives and prosecutors aren't emotionless robots, after all, so why shouldn't the characters find some levity despite all the murder and crime in their daily lives? The actor continued:
And some of that humor sometimes, while it might come across as glib or maybe even insensitive at times, it's very much a defense mechanism that I think is important to include in the show. It is a challenge that you don't want to make these guys to seem heartless, or if they do in a moment, you want to see them sort of [say], 'Oh, maybe did I take that too far?' Or do they have a reaction to their own reaction? But I think it's just a true representation of how these detectives conduct themselves and that's what I'm about as an actor. I love anything that's just really genuine and authentic.
Personally, I also think that the humor goes to show the bonds between the characters getting stronger, especially now that Riley and Shaw are into their second year as partners. These people are in the trenches together, so why shouldn't they take a few moments here and there to crack a smile? It would be difficult for the characters if they couldn't, and likely not very much fun for viewers to watch.
That being said, I'm not sure how much room for humor there will be in the Season 24 finale, which is revisiting the case of the murder of Maroun's sister. Take a look:
The good news? It looks like Price will be there to support his fellow ADA in her time of need, although it remains to be seen if she really can remain hands-off from the case that has such emotional weight for her. The bad news? This will be the last episode before summer hiatus, and apparently, there are a lot more people watching Law & Order than I'd known.
Tune in to NBC on Thursday, May 15 at 8 p.m. ET for the Season 24 finale of Law & Order, followed by the Season 26 finale of SVU and the series finale of the recently-cancelled Found.
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