The last new case of Law & Order aired just under six months ago, with the Season 22 finale doubling as longtime star Sam Waterston's 400th episode. At the time, the WGA writers strike had begun, but the SAG-AFTRA actors were not striking yet, and there was reason to hope that the long-running NBC drama could be back in September as usual for the franchise. Nearly six months later, the strikes are finally both over. With production on L&O Season 23 expected to begin before the end of November, I flashed back to some comments from actor Mehcad Brooks from last season, and they make me more hopeful than ever for what comes next.
First things first! The actors strike ended on November 9 when SAG-AFTRA struck a deal with the AMPTP, followed by reports that Law & Order (along with SVU, Organized Crime, and the other shows in the Wolf Entertainment franchise) was aiming to salvage a 13-episode TV season with production for the 2023-2024 lineup beginning after Thanksgiving. It's unlikely that fans will see characters like Mehcad Brooks' Jalen Shaw, Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy, or any of the other L&O series regulars any sooner than February 2024, but this is definitely progress that left me thinking about how Season 23 could pick up on Season 22, and that took me back to an interview from nearly a year ago.
I'd spoken with Mehcad Brooks for a key episode of Season 22, before the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes began. Shaw took center stage in last season's fall finale, as he dealt with what the actor described as his character's "worst nightmare" of putting somebody behind bars after unknowingly taking a false confession. Fittingly called "The System," the episode also touched on how the system had failed an innocent Black man to the point that he had no good choices, and there really was no way for a happy ending. Shaw had left a career in law behind to try and change the system, and this episode forced him to consider whether he had just become part of it.
It wasn't a fun hour of television for Jalen Shaw in Season 22, but "The System" was a standout episode for me both as a showcase of Law & Order's newest series regular and one that asked viewers to reconsider their preconceptions not only about the show and the characters, but also real life. When it aired in 2022, I asked Mehcad Brooks how important he felt it was for a show as successful and long-running as Law & Order to tackle the topic, and his comments leave me hoping that Season 23 will revisit it. Brooks said that he thinks it's "really important," and elaborated:
I think it's courageous. I think it's brave, but I also think it's realistic, in that Law & Order is an institution that is able to reach out to a multiplicity of diverse Americans within their own homes and living rooms and dining rooms, and perhaps even spark conversations that could create a more equitable future for all of us. So I think that if we are able to talk about a system and people's lived experiences that we may know nothing about, if we can accept people's lived experiences as true, where does the conversation start to go? Maybe the conversation starts to include compassion, maybe the conversation starts to include the understanding that I know nothing about your experience. Then how do we fix it? We know there's a problem, but how do we fix it?
Law & Order hasn't amassed nearly 500 episodes over 22 seasons and counting because it fails to reach an audience; as Mehcad Brooks pointed out, the show potentially sparking conversations could help to spread understanding. The specific case of a given episode doesn't have to be ripped from real-life headlines to get people talking, and that could lead to positive changes. The actor continued:
Talking about a system that was set up centuries ago that none of us are responsible for, but all of us are responsible for changing. It's more than topical; it's necessary. And I think that it has to be said that the system doesn't need a conscious operator, it doesn't need people who are feeding it. It just has to be left alone. It just has to be good people [who] don't do anything for it to continue to operate as it was set up. I think that us being honest about that, about the formation of such systems and how the structures work against our collective good, that has to be a conversation that reaches our living rooms. And I think that if we can spark the conversation that could perhaps spark the change, then I think we've done our jobs.
While it's much too early to say if Law & Order will air more episodes that examine the shortcomings of the system through the perspectives of characters (including Mehcad Brooks' Jalen Shaw), I'm ready to start crossing my fingers. This is a procedural show, but Law & Order moving on to a different case each week doesn't mean only tackling a certain topic once. On the whole, between revisiting my conversation with Brooks and celebrating the news that TV shows can finally start production, I'm feeling freshly hopeful for Season 23.
For now, you can always revisit "The System" as well as every other episode of Season 22 streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription. Law & Order will return with new episodes at some point in the 2024 TV schedule, and it's just a matter of waiting to find out when.
