Articles

Law & Order: The Mystery of Success

by James Saighman
October 6, 2004

September 13, 1990--do you remember where you were at 10:00 pm Eastern/9:00 Central?  For millions of Americans, it was the first time they heard what has since become perhaps the most instantly recognizable sound in television history.  That’s right; Law & Order was born fourteen years ago this month.  During its run, the series has garnered dozens of Emmy nominations (and a few wins) as well as being recognized as one of the outstanding series in the history of the medium by numerous critics.  Unlike some other critical favorites, L&O has also been a ratings hit during its entire run.  In fact, it has been so popular that NBC has spun off two other L&O series: Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, each of which consistently wins the ratings battle in its own respective time slot.  The 2004-2005 season was to have seen yet another spin-off, this one focusing more on the trials and featuring Jerry Orbach as a now-retired Lenny Briscoe going into business as a private investigator.  However, L&O: Trial by Jury was pulled from this fall’s lineup.  Fans are hoping to see it as a mid-season replacement.

In 2003, Legacy Interactive purchased the game rights to the L&O franchise.  The first game in the series, Law & Order: Dead on the Money, lived up its progenitor’s reputation admirably.  Although reviewers criticized (rightly) some of the game’s design flaws, it was generally well received.  And, like the TV show which inspired it, it was a financial success for Legacy.  The next game installment, L&O: Double or Nothing, was even more popular on both fronts.  Some of the most glaring faults of the first game were fixed, while players were given a longer and deeper storyline.  The critical and financial success of L&O:DoN pretty much guaranteed a continued commitment to the series of games on the part of both Legacy and Wolf Films (producers of the TV series).  This month will see the third installment of the game series: Law & Order: Justice is Served.

“…the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups…”

To a television industry analyst, the overwhelming success of L&O might seem a bit puzzling.  At first glance, nothing in the show seems particularly new or revolutionary.  Police and detective series have been around since ABC’s Stand by for Crime in 1949.  By the 1970’s, police and detective dramas had become a significant portion of television fare, offering everything from the hard-boiled Kojak and Streets of San Francisco to the more personal drama of Police Story to the tongue-in-cheek anti-hero of The Rockford Files.  Similarly, the courtroom drama has a long history in television, beginning in 1951 with NBC’s The Amazing Mr. Malone.  During the course of their runs, both Perry Mason and L.A. Law consistently scored high ratings.  L&O wasn’t even the first TV series to focus on the D.A.’s office.  (That would be 1951’s Mr. District Attorney.)

No, there is nothing especially innovative about any of the ingredients of L&O.  Then why its amazing success?  It might be because creator/producer Dick Wolf took these stale formats and managed to combine them in a completely new way.  For those of you who may have been living on Pluto for the last 15 years, the show has a patented format to which it sticks 99.9% of the time.  A dead body is found during the intro.  The first half hour depicts the investigation of the murder by a pair of detectives from Manhattan’s 27^th Precinct.  That half of the show ends with the arrest of a suspect and his/her Miranda warning being recited.  After the mid-point commercial break, we pick up at the suspect’s arraignment and then follow the attempts of two District Attorneys to convict the suspect in a jury trial.  Essentially, Wolf has taken two different successful 60-minute drama series formats and with exceptionally skilled writing, acting and editing, condensed them into a single hour-long show.

In their dedication to remaining faithful to the TV series, Legacy’s developers have exactly mimicked Wolf’s formula.

Mystery, detective and police games are certainly nothing new.  One of the very first game series was Sierra’s Police Quest line.  Starting in 1987, players could immerse themselves in the daily grind of police work, gradually working their way from patrol cop to detective.  As developers looked around for something other than the fantasy themes that had served as the foundation of the adventure game genre, mystery and detective themed games popped up more and more regularly.  Access Software struck gold when they combined the classic private eye with science fiction to give us the beloved Tex Murphy games.  Sierra hit paydirt again with the Laura Bow games.  Mythos Software scored moderate success and critical acclaim with its two Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes offerings.  And Her Interactive is currently riding high with the most prolific adventure game series in history; 2004 saw the release of the tenth Nancy Drew game.

Although not nearly as prevalent, there were also courtroom-based adventure games and sims long before the L&O games.  The next release from Broderbund after Myst was the wonderful but largely unknown In the 1^st Degree, in which you play a San Francisco D.A. investigating and trying a burglary-murder case.  Mindscape’s Crime and Punishment allowed players to simulate being a judge, handing out sentences for various convicted felons and then rating the player against the real-life results.  And then there was Legacy’s own D.A.: Pursuit of Justice in 2001, which was almost a carbon copy of Broderbund’s earlier courtroom adventure with the difference that it offered three shorter cases instead of a single large one.

To their credit, Legacy Interactive didn’t let the lack of success of these earlier games stand in their way when the opportunity to grab the L&O franchise came along.  Apparently, they had learned from their mistakes with PoJ and, like Dick Wolf, took an approach that combined the best of two genres into a successful new whole.

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