It took a while for NBC to pull the trigger, but finally, on May 7, the news arrived when it was announced that Law & Order will get an incredible 26th season. However, when the show starring Hugh Dancy as A.D.A. Nolan Price, Tony Goldwyn as District Attorney Nicholas Baxter, Odelya Halevi as A.D.A. Samantha Maroun, Reid Scott as Detective Vincent Riley, David Ajala as Detective Theo Walker, and Maura Tierney as Lieutenant Jessica Brady returns this fall, it will see a big change and a later time slot.
With the announcement of the renewal, Law & Order will still air on Thursdays, but instead of opening the night for NBC as it has done since its return for season 21, the show will move to the closing hour of the night. Beginning this fall, Law & Order will air at 10 pm ET, where it will now follow SVU rather than air ahead of it. Aside from Law & Order, NBC's fall schedule won't bring much change, with shows like the One Chicago series and other returning favorites remaining in their time slots from the 2025-26 season.
The move seems to be part of a larger strategy that explains why it took NBC so long to make a decision. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the delay in renewal stemmed from budget discussions and finding a place on the schedule.
“It’s funny that people were saying it was a bubble show,” the president of scripted content for NBC and Peacock, Lisa Katz remarked of the show's renewal. “We love the show. We love the [Law & Order] block. It was very much a puzzle of figuring out what went where, and we have civilian Traitors coming in the fall. So it was just trying to put all the pieces [together] and figure out how many episodes and when they would come. But we’re very excited to have it back.”
The show that started the Law & Order franchise has indeed been a reliable ratings driver, averaging 4.75 million viewers per 7-day period. It also routinely ranks in the Top 10 of Nielsen ratings for 25 of the past 35 weeks.
Still, despite NBC's assurances, the finagling the network needed to do to find a home for “old reliable” could indicate that Law & Order is on borrowed time if other programs start really hauling in viewers. After all, Organized Crime was officially canceled earlier this season. The good news is that this renewal was not billed as a final season, so for at least one more year, fans of the long-running OG will still get to see their favorite characters arrest the baddies and take them to court... they'll just have to catch episodes two hours later starting in season 26.
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