NBC's Law & Order Thursdays are (mostly) coming back in the fall of the 2024 TV schedule, with the original series and SVU returning to their usual time slots while Organized Crime heads to Peacock. Unfortunately for fans waiting for payoff from Law & Order's Season 23 finale cliffhanger or the aftermath of SVU's 25th season finale standoff, there's still well over a month before the shows return. The good news? Wolf Entertainment, the production company behind the Law & Order franchise, has a new true crime project in the works that premieres quite soon.
The new project is a podcast called Law & Order: Criminal Justice System. While it's not Wolf Entertainment's very first podcast, and the Dark Woods project even recruited Chicago Fire alum Monica Raymund, this is the company's first investigative journalism podcast. Former Brooklyn homicide prosecutor Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi is the host. The subject of the unscripted podcast will be the American Mafia in New York City, and listeners will follow the story of the criminal organization's downfall.
That's hardly a spoiler, as the setting will be the backdrop of 1979 and the story of the mafia's downfall isn't exactly a secret. This podcast's telling of the era will take its own approach and dig into the team of young police officers and prosecutors who beat the odds to get the win over the mob. The narrative begins in the first episode with the assassination of crime boss Carmine Galante.
And you can check it out for yourself sooner rather than later, as the first season of Law & Order: Criminal Justice System will premiere on Thursday, August 22 via iHeartPodcasts. The true story of the American Mafia also won't be the only case that will be examined by the project; the deal for Criminal Justice System guarantees four seasons of twelve episodes each.
This definitely isn't going to be a case of Law & Order ripping from the headlines, but the full true story told in audio format. Given that L&O and SVU won't be back on NBC until Thursday, October 3, I'd say that the timing couldn't be better for a Law & Order franchise podcast to premiere.
I also have to laugh that the official Criminal Justice System podcast is launching not too long after Christopher Meloni's "true crime" podcast debuted, because the two could hardly be more different. The Organized Crime star – who detailed his SVU fan interactions at the 2024 Paris Olympics – narrates a podcast for the Temptations cat food company called Catch A Cat Burglar: Purry Duty.
If you don't expect that a podcast alone will scratch your Law & Order itch as the wait for the fall premieres continues, you can always find the original series, SVU, and Organized Crime streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription. Christopher Meloni's show moving from NBC to the NBCU streamer means that it won't return as early as L&O and SVU, but one star recently confirmed that at least production has begun on Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5.
