The tenth season turned out to be the last for actor Steven Hill, who, aside from a few voiceovers for commercials, retired from acting before dying in 2016. Ironically, Robert M. Morganthau, the elderly real-life New York County District Attorney that Adam Schiff was loosely based upon, wouldn't retire for another nine years, ending his tenure at the age of ninety. Schiff's departure wasn't revealed until the season premiere of Season 11, where it was mentioned that he left to work on the Holocaust Project. He never returned to the series, though was mentioned to be alive as recently as Season 19.
Having lost Homicide: Life on the Street as a partner in two-parters, the show turned to its spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which had premiered that year and had already featured Angie Harmon as Abbie Carmichael in several episodes. The two shows had one two-parter, "Entitled" (the title for both Episode 14 of Season 10 and Episode 15 of SVU's first season), which aired back-to-back on the same night, and "Fools for Love" (S10E22), another standalone episode which involved the SVU cast. In the episode "High & Law" (S10E22), one of the guest stars was actress Adrienne Shelley, whose murder in 2006 would itself lead to its own Law & Order episode in Season 17.
The "Rolf 9" machine pistol is the focus of the season premiere "Gunshow" (S10E01). In reality, it is a Armitage International Scarab Skorpion, a crude "copy" of the Skorpion SA, fitted with a barrel shroud. The necessity of using a firearm no longer in production is due to the fact the gun in the episode is shown to have a design flaw that allows an individual to easily convert it from a semi-automatic to a fully automatic firearm. In the episode, the company that manufactures the weapon knows about the design flaw, but refuses to fix it because they know people are only buying that gun BECAUSE it's easily convertible.
One of the most reviled Executive ADAs in the show's history, Sonya (Lahti) filled in for Cabot across a handful of season 11 episodes, immediately clashing with SVU, particularly Stabler, for being both cynical and ambitious. That was only made worse when she not only botched a case, but showed up to court the next day drunk, landing her in rehab and on a redemption tour that never quite stuck. Though she eventually showed some latent vulnerability, Sonya was murdered by a cold case killer suspect, biting him before she died so SVU could catch her killer.
Following the major exit of original star Christopher Meloni, SVU needed the fill the void with a few familiar faces, hence adding flagship star Roche alongside returning fan-favorite Stephanie March in the season 13 premiere. So, Cutter briefly joined SVU as the Bureau Chief after being demoted by Jack McCoy.
The no-nonsense ADA first joined the ranks following a revolving door of ADAs that included Cabot, Novak, Haden, Cutter, eventually landing a permanent slot in season 15. Where past ADAs found camaraderie with SVU, the scrupulous Barba was always determined to win his case, even if that meant contending with everyone from the victim to Olivia & Co. After becoming the longest-serving ADA on the series, Barba resigned amid his controversial decision to pull the plug on a braindead child.
While other character appearances are currently under wraps, one character who is will be coming back for the crossover, however, is Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson). While Law & Order returned for its 21st season earlier this year over a decade after season 20 ended in 2010, and was quickly renewed for season 22, Anderson only signed on for one season of the revival. His exit will be addressed in episode 2 of the upcoming Law & Order season, after the crossover.
As Deadline reported in November, Anderson had signed a one-year deal and has chosen not to continue on the upcoming season, which has been picked up by NBC. According to sources, Anderson wanted to support Dick Wolf in the relaunch of the mothership of the franchise for one season and always planned to move on after that.
Law and Order didn't reach its peak until the start of Season 5, but that doesn't mean the show's first four seasons didn't feature some of the best stories. Take into consideration the Season 4 episode "Mayhem," which follows detectives Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Mike Logan (Chris Noth) on what can only be called the shift from hell. Over the course of a single day, the pair is faced with three unconnected homicides, which are inspired by the Lorena Bobbitt, Son of Sam, and Zodiac crime stories from the latter part of the 20th Century.
During the first four seasons of Law and Order, Michael Moriarty portrayed Executive Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Stone before Sam Waterson and his character Jack McCoy came in and took over as the show's star prosecutor. Moriarty's run on the show ended with the Season 4 finale "Old Friends" which saw his version of Stone take on the Russian mafia after he linked the death of baby-food company accountant with the criminal enterprise. When Stone pushes a star witness (played by Allison Janney) to implicate the mob, things turn south, and lives are wrecked in the process. This one ends with one of those signature Law and Order quiet and contemplative endings that the show would use so well later on.
Jesse Martin, who portrayed Detective Ed Green, was one of the most senior members of the Law and Order cast when he left the show with the Season 18 shocker "Burn Card." When an internal affairs investigation digs up pieces of Green's past that he wishes would have remained forgotten, the senior detective is forced to offer his resignation and move on with his life. Seeing such a vital member of the cast leave was hard to take, and honestly it's something I never really got over, no matter how much I loved the pairing of Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) and Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson) in the show's final two seasons.
All good things have to come to an end, and that was true for Law and Order once the show entered its 20th and final season in the fall of 2009. Although just a shell of its former self, the show did have a pretty amazing final few episodes, including the series finale "Rubber Room." When detectives uncover a website hosting graphic photos of underage girls, things quickly go into overdrive when the anonymous blogger announces plans to blow up a school. Add in one of the final Jack McCoy moments and an emotional conclusion to Lieutenant Anita Van Buren's cancer scare, and you have a touching way of bringing the long-running show to an effective conclusion.
Detectives Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe) and Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) had been missing for almost the entire previous season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Their precinct captain Danny Ross (Eric Bogosian) was murdered and the resulting investigation ended with Detective Eames ascending to captain, firing Goren as a demand from the NYPD brass, and then quitting as an act of defiant self-sacrifice. As extremely cool and badass as all that was to watch, it was definitely a surprise that the final season brought them back on the force. There had been some hope even from executive producer Dick Wolf himself that Criminal Intent might see an 11th season, but alas, come July 2011, USA Network announced there would be no renewal.
Eames and Goren were and still are the thudding heart of the show's legacy, though, no matter the fact that the cast had split episode perspectives since 2005; weeks were initially swapped with Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra as Detectives Mike Logan and Carolyn Barek, and had had many actors come and go in the years afterward. Nothing could quite measure up to Eames' quiet exasperation and steadfastness matched with Goren's flighty, sometimes bordering on goofy investigational whims. If it had to end there, those eight episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent season 10 were the ideal.
It's fortunate that we ever got to see a season 7 of Criminal Intent, much less a season 10. Once upon a time, Criminal Intent premiered and aired on NBC for six years, just like its mothership and cousin programs, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU. It performed well there for five straight seasons as a starchier, more intellectual offering than SVU with a tighter, more personal cast than the original Law & Order. However, trouble arose when the earliest bloom of the modern TV renaissance came in the form of Desperate Housewives and House M.D.'s earth-shattering arrivals. This put severe dents into Criminal Intent's ratings performance across its fifth and sixth seasons.
Between seasons nine and 10, all bets were off for Criminal Intent once again. Star Jeff Goldblum walked away from reprising his role as Zach Nichols (which he had held since season 8, replacing Chris Noth) and his reasons quoted at the time were doubts as to the future of the show going forward. He was correct: May had turned to June and even July, well beyond the usual timeline for television renewals, with no announcement whatsoever from USA Network as to what Criminal Intent's fate would be. No actor contracts were renewed despite voluntary extensions on the network's behalf to give talent more time. For several weeks, silence stretched on as an poor omen, and that seemed to be it for this branch of the Law & Order franchise.
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