Spoilers ahead for Episode 12 of Law & Order Season 22, called “Almost Famous.”
Law & Order returned from a brief break with an episode that showcased a very, very, very dark side of young people wanting to become rich and famous internet influencers. One teenager was dead, more were permanently injured, and one man was pulling the strings behind a whole content house of creators. Cosgrove was more or less lost when it came to the technology (to Shaw’s amusement), but the cops found as much evidence as possible before handing the case over to Price and Maroun under McCoy’s guidance. By the end, I found myself wishing that Law & Order had brought on a character or two from Law & Order: SVU and/or Law & Order: Organized Crime.
Admittedly, part of why I had SVU and OC on my mind during “Almost Famous” was simply that elements of the case reminded me of the other two shows. Some red herrings early in the episode pointed toward a pedophile as the killer; even though I can’t rattle off the details of all 500+ episodes of SVU, I’m confident that the long-running series has covered many cases similar to how this one began. The investigation into the content house also reminded me of when OC’s Jet works her tech magic, and the time she went undercover in a similar group of tech-savvy young people.
With SVU and OC on my mind, I just would have loved a cameo from one of those shows. It wouldn’t have to be a multi-part crossover like how the three shows started the 2022-2023 TV season back in the fall. Something smaller like how Camryn Manheim recently dropped by SVU to use her ASL familiarity to help with a case would have been great. Plus, Law & Order is generally more disconnected from the other two shows than they are from each other, with Christopher Meloni popping up as Stabler on the SVU episode that aired immediately after “Almost Famous” on January 26!
And Stabler crossing over to his former show to interact with Benson was hyped throughout the two-week break leading up to January 26. In fact, even though most of the promos for this particular Law & Order Thursday on NBC technically advertised all three shows in one ad, the SVU portion is the one that had fans buzzing. The promo hyping the Meloni crossover worked to hype both SVU and Organized Crime, while the footage previewing Law & Order was… also there. Just take a look:
The moment we've all been waiting for. Don’t miss new episodes of #LawAndOrder, #SVU, and #OrganizedCrime Thursday at 8/7c on @NBC and streaming on @peacock. pic.twitter.com/H1Cpycd7eoJanuary 25, 2023
Now, none of this is an argument that SVU or Organized Crime deserve less hype, and SVU is actually my favorite of the L&O series. The original show could just benefit from Benson or Stabler or any of the other characters popping up every once in a while so that it receives the same kind of buzz. Law & Order has a lot going for it, with Price and Maroun dealing with problems in the courtroom, Kate Dixon leading the pack, and Bernard and Shaw occasionally facing their worst nightmares as the boots on the ground.
See what Law & Order has in store next with new episodes of Season 22 on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, followed by SVU at 9 p.m. and Organized Crime at 10 p.m. All three shows are available streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription as well, if you can’t tune in to watch live in the 2023 TV schedule.
