Law & Order fans rejoice at the news their favorite series has been renewed for an impressive 24th season. The growth of viewers in the latest season encouraged NBC to renew the wildly popular police and legal drama, which spawned many other series.
The series, which took over a decade-long hiatus, was rebooted in 2022 to increased viewership. The series, created by Dick Wolf, premiered in 1990 to tell the stories of New York City detectives and their investigative skills used to assist the District Attorney to build a strong case against the alleged criminal. Law & Order is the first procedural drama to tell both sides of the case and feature detectives and prosecutors working together to solve the crimes and punish those responsible.
It’s been an emotional season as fans said goodbye to Sam Waterston’s District Attorney, Jack McCoy, a role he portrayed for 18 seasons of the series across 400 episodes. New DA, Nicholas Baxter, has replaced McCoy, a role played by Tony Goldwyn and more change is on the way! We’ll have more updates coming our way as the new season inches closer, but let’s take a look at everything we know so far!
NBC will see the return of Law & Order for its 24th season in the fall of 2024 at the regular time slot on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream on Peacock the following day. Given new seasons typically premiere sometime in late September, we’re anticipating that Law & Order season 24 will kick off on either Thursday, September 19, or Thursday, September 26.
This season expects to see the return of Detective Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) and Detective Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), who handle the investigations. The legal aspects of the cases are handled by Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) and ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi).
Fans have speculated that due to the announcement of a new Downton Abby movie, Hugh Dancy, who has portrayed Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price since season 21, could be the next cast member to leave. Dancy starred in Downton Abby: A New Era (2022) and could reprise the role in the upcoming film; however, it’s important to note that Dancy has not announced an exit from the series and it’s unlikely he’ll leave the show due to the role.
We don’t know when exactly filming on the new Downton Abbey movie will take place, but it’s likely Dancy might film his scenes during the summer or perhaps miss an episode or two of Season 24 to film any scenes his character might have in the film.
Actress Camryn Manheim announced her exit from the series as Lt. Kate Dixon, a role she has played since season 21. What is interesting is that while word of her exit broke before the season 23 finale, the finale did not address Manheim’s exit in any way.
What is going to be interesting is to see whether Manheim will return for an episode or two next season to wrap up her character’s storyline, or whether her exit will take place off-screen. As we saw when Jeffrey Donovan exited the show after season 23, Law & Order is no oppposed to writing a main character out of the series off-screen so there is a chance Manheim’s final episode has already aired and that we won’t see her back for season 24 in any capacity.
NBC has yet to announce the episode count for the upcoming season of Law & Order. It is expected that the series will return to an 18-22 episode count for season 24. The recent season scaled back to 13 episodes due to the Writer’s Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes. With the strikes now behind us, most shows should see an uptick in their episode counts next season as networks look to return to a more normal season.
