NBC previously packed Thursday nights with procedural action with three solid hours of the Law & Order franchise, but that will change in the fall of the 2024 TV schedule with Law & Order: Organized Crime moving to streaming for Season 5 for Peacock Premium subscribers. The story of New York’s Organized Crime Control Bureau will continue with Christopher Meloni in his iconic role as Det. Elliot Stabler; fans just shouldn’t expect to see it paired with Law & Order: SVU in primetime again.
Some elements of the show are bound to change with a move from network TV to streaming, while others will remain the same. Let’s get into what to expect from the arrival of Law & Order: Organized Crime on Peacock as an original.
At the time of writing, no premiere date has been confirmed for Season 5. Of the four seasons of Organized Crime so far, two premiered alongside Law & Order and SVU for 22-episode runs starting in September of that year, but the eight-episode first season premiered in April 2021 and the 13-episode fourth season (affected by the WGA writers strike) premiered in January 2024. According to Deadline, the fifth season is expected to run for ten episodes. Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Found Season 2 will take OC’s previous 10 p.m. ET Thursday slot on NBC starting in the fall.
There was some confusion in the spring when Organized Crime was the only show in NBC’s branch of the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe not to be renewed. After rumors of a move to streaming, the transition was finally confirmed in early May. Later that month, NBCUniversal Entertainment President of Programming Planning Strategy Jeff Bader explained the move to Peacock to TVLine, saying:
Organized Crime is a VERY successful show; this isn’t a show that was on the bubble. It’s a show that works across the board, and it’s very, very strong on streaming. [Moving Season 5 to Peacock] is a win-win for us — 80% of its viewing isn’t in the time period where we schedule it, it’s delayed on Peacock, so it just made sense to move that to free up the time period
According to the NBCUniversal exec, the issue was never a lack of success for the delay in Organized Crime’s renewal. It remains to be seen how much of the audience follows Stabler and Co. to Peacock.
At the time of writing, no details have been confirmed for Organized Crime Season 5’s story. That said, the end of Season 4 that brought OC full circle also delivered a cliffhanger with the big bad of the year – arms and drug dealer Julian Emery – escaping the task force with a briefcase of chemical weapons, with Joe Stabler Jr. in tow.
Emery escaped with a not-entirely-willing Joe Jr. on the heels of Stabler’s latest dangerous undercover op and the murder of fellow NYPD detective Samir Bashir, who was such a kind family man that fans perhaps should have known he wouldn’t survive long in the intensity of Organized Crime.