After some foreboding overtures, NBC has decided to continue Dick Wolf's long-running series, Law & Order, and its two spin-offs, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent…well, sort of. According to an AP report, NBC Universal will announce today that Law & Order and SVU will stay on NBC, while CI will get shipped off to USA, where its reruns are some of the station's highest rated programs. Said Jeff Zucker, chairman of NBC Universal: "This was a strategic decision by us. We are really taking USA to a new stratosphere."
Um, yeah. NBC had told executive producer Wolf that the network only had room for two of the shows; because SVU has the highest ratings, it wasn't going anywhere. Law & Order suffered a ratings setback last year when it moved to Fridays, and Fred Thompson, who plays DA Arthur Branch, is considering a run for president in '08. The show may not return until midseason, according to the AP story.
There's no word about whether Law & Order: Trial By Jury will ever come back, though.