I Watched Law And Order’s Pilot For The First Time For The Milestone 25th Season, And It’s Like A Totally Different Show

The 2025 TV schedule is historic for the Law & Order franchise, with the original series kicking off its 25th season on September 25, which also happens to be just over a week after the 35th anniversary of the franchise itself. In honor of the Season 25 milestone, I decided that I would watch the pilot for the very first time and see how the episode that started it all in 1990 compares to present-day Law & Order on NBC.

The pilot was called “Prescription for Death” and first aired on NBC on September 13, 1990. The death of a young woman in an emergency room prompts her grieving father to accuse her doctors of murder, putting Detective Max Greevey (George Dzundza) and Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth) on the case under the supervision of Captain Don Cragen (Dann Florek) before passing the case over to EADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), and DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill).

Why I Decided To Watch Law & Order’s Pilot

I’ve watched every episode of Law & Order since its revival in 2022, but SVU was the only pilot I’d ever seen other than Organized Crime in the world that is now known for “DUN DUN,” the classic opening narration, and Hudson University as NYC’s most dangerous fictional college. So, I went back to September 1990 via my Hulu subscription and finally watched the OG pilot. Shows don’t hit 25 seasons every day, after all! I discovered that it feels almost entirely different from Law & Order circa 2025.

Why It Felt So Different

I’ll come right out and admit that there were some familiar elements that felt like the Law & Order world that I’ve come to know in the 21st century. The aforementioned “DUN DUN,” the scenes clearly filmed on location in NYC, the wonderful Dann Florek as Captain Cragen… all familiar to me. But that’s about it for what I recognized!

I was already familiar with Chris Noth, but I only knew him from other TV shows like Sex and the City and The Equalizer. The closest I came to knowing anything about EADA Ben Stone was flashing back to Philip Winchester playing his son, Peter Stone, on SVU. George Dzundza was completely unknown to me as Detective Matt Greevey, and his prominent role in the pilot is really what made it feel like an episode of an entirely different show in the franchise.

Straight Out Of The ‘90s

The opening of the episode honestly felt to me like it belonged in an episode of ER, although the medical drama was still four years away from premiering when Law & Order launched, and early ER might have just been on my mind because of the ‘90s setting. (Plus, Maura Tierney is a current Law & Order star.) I honestly had fun with the time period, with everything from the use of Wite-Out to illegally doctor paperwork to the very long opening credits that were a TV staple back in the day.

Some Future TV Stars Had Minor Roles

Just like what happens when revisiting older episodes of SVU, I recognized some actors in minor roles who would later become huge TV stars. John Spencer, who would begin playing Leo McGarry nine years later on The West Wing, portrayed the grieving father in the Law & Order pilot. Future NCIS star Rocky Carroll was on board as a doctor, looking so young that I had to pause my stream of the episode to look up whether that really was him.

The Pilot Aged Pretty Well

For all that everything from the technology to the wardrobe choices made the Law & Order feel pretty dated, the plot actually aged better than SVU’s pilot did. That’s not to say that I expect a Season 25 episode of Law & Order to recycle any of the choices that worked to kick off a franchise in 1990, but the storyline feels pretty timeless to me.

This episode would have been enough to make me want to watch more of Law & Order back in the day… if I was old enough to watch primetime crime dramas in 1990, anyway. If you also want to revisit the pilot, you can find it streaming on Hulu now, while later seasons can be found with a Peacock subscription. Season 25 of Law & Order premieres on Thursday, September 25, at 8 p.m. ET.