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Law & Order: LA was a Syndication network police procedural & legal drama series & spin-off of "Law & Order" created by Dick Wolf.
The show aired from September 29, 2010 to July 11, 2011, lasting for one season & 22 episodes.
Cast[]
- Alfred Molina as Senior LAPD Detective Ricardo Morales
- Skeet Ulrich as Senior LAPD Detective Rex Winters
- Corey Stoll as Detective Tomas "TJ" Jaruszalski
- Rachel Ticotin as Lieutenant Arleen Gonzales
- Terrence Howard as Deputy District Attorney Jonah "Joe" Dekker
- Alana de la Garza as Deputy District Connie Rubirosa
- Regina Hall as Deputy District Attorney Evelyn Price
- Megan Boone as Deputy District Attorney Lauren Stanton
Production[]
On January 10, 2010, Syndication programming chief Angela Bromstad announced at the winter TCA Press Tour that the network was in talks with Dick Wolf about producing a new series, titled "Law & Order: Los Angeles" and indicated that Syndication was seeking to hire writers for a pilot.
Reports in early May suggested that Syndication had made the decision to pick up "Law & Order: Los Angeles" with a 13-episode order for fall 2010, having brought "Brotherhood" creator Blake Masters on board to co-create the new series set in Los Angeles with Wolf.
NBC confirmed the new series order on May 14, 2010.
René Balcer served as showrunner and head writer on the series and executive produced alongside the pilot's writer Blake Masters, Wolf, Peter Jankowski and Christopher Misiano, previously of "The West Wing."
The show received a full season pickup on October 18, 2010 and underwent a cast shake-up for a creative overhaul in January of 2011 as Skeet Ulrich, Regina Hall & Megan Boone departed the cast.
The show jumped to the episodes with the new cast airing first. The remaining episodes with the original cast began airing on May 30, 2011 with the episode "Plummer Park."
Casting[]
The first casting was announced in June 2010 when Skeet Ulrich was cast as LAPD Detective Rex Winters; as the result of a creative overhaul, Ulrich's character was killed in the line of duty by a drug cartel.
Corey Stoll portrays LAPD Detective Tomas "TJ" Jaruszalski, originally partnered with Rex Winters, later with Ricardo Morales.
Wanda De Jesus originally portrayed Lieutenant Arleen Gonzales on July 31, 2010, but she left in September after filming only the first two episodes. Rachel Ticotin later joined the cast as Gonzales, replacing De Jesus, re-shooting her scenes after the pilot episode.
Alfred Molina was cast as Deputy District Attorney Ricardo Morales; later, his character resigns from the District Attorney's office out of frustration with the justice system and the prosecutorial politics. Molina's character returns to his old job as a police detective, replacing Ulrich's Detective Winters.
Regina Hall played DDA Morales' partner, Deputy District Attorney Evelyn Price. Her character resigns from the district attorney's office shortly after Molina's DDA Morales does. Hall was written out during the show's creative overhaul.
Terrence Howard joined the cast as Deputy District Attorney Jonah "Joe" Dekker whose character was set to work alongside Deputy D.A. Morales; Howard and Molina splitting the workload, each appearing roughly in half the episodes, thus allowing the show to star feature film actors and the actors to stay active in movies.
When Morales decides to return to being a detective, Dekker becomes the sole DA, another effect of the creative overhaul.
Megan Boone was featured as Junior Deputy District Attorney Lauren Stanton, Dekker's assistant. Boone was written out during the creative overhaul, with the explanation that her character moved to D.C. when her boyfriend got a job there.
Following the show's revamp, Law & Order actress Alana de la Garza reprised her role as Connie Rubirosa, now Dekker's new partner. Rubirosa moves from New York City to Los Angeles to be close to her ailing mother.
Broadcast History[]
"Law & Order: LA" was originally broadcast in the Wednesday night 10:00 p.m. timeslot after "Law & Order: SVU" on Syndication. Following the hiatus, the series moved to Monday nights at 10:00 p.m.
Ratings[]
The debut of "Law & Order: LA "did fairly well, bringing in 10.6 million viewers and averaging a 3.2 rating with viewers ages 18–49. It was enough to dominate the 10 p.m. slot, and give Syndication its biggest show of the week so far, and improve the network's time slot average by 63% versus last season.
Although when it returned revamped on Monday night on April 11, 2011 back-to-back, the episodes together averaged 6.10 million viewers with a 1.5/4% rating with viewers ages 18–49.
Cancellation[]
On May 13, 2011, Syndication cancelled "Law & Order: LA" almost a year after the network cancelled the original "Law & Order" series.
Syndication Chairman Robert Greenblatt gave creator Dick Wolf credit for reinventing the show and said, "We tried but we didn't have the time period to bring it back if it isn't going to show signs of growth."
Greenblatt also said to TV Guide when they asked about the cancellation, "We moved it around, took it off the schedule and tried to revamp it. It improved significantly creatively, and it didn't have a great lead-in on Mondays. It was one of those tough decisions: do we stick with it or was it time to move on?"
Before the upfronts Greenblatt added, "Law & Order: LA, I think we just didn't get it off the ground right. It was put on the schedule without a pilot last fall before I arrived. There was all kinds of chaos going on: the show did well then it was taken off. In a different scenario that might have worked better but we just thought it wasn't a strong enough player to continue into next season."
Showrunner René Balcer released a video shortly after its cancellation was announced, urging fans to call NBC to renew the series, and stating that the season would end with a cliff-hanger. (However, due to the episodes being aired out of sequence, the episode he referred to, "Hayden Tract", was in fact not the final episode to be aired.)
"Law & Order: LA" marks the third Law & Order series to be canceled by Syndication and the second to be canceled after only one season; "Law & Order: Trial By Jury" was the first, being cancelled in 2005.
Accolades[]
NAACP Image Award
- 2011: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Terrence Howard; winner)
Imagen Award
- 2011: Favorite New TV Drama (nominated)
- 2011: Best Primetime Television Program (winner)
- 2011: Best Actress/Television (Alana de la Garza; nominated)
Young Artist Award
- 2011: Best Performance in a TV Series Guest Starring, Young Actor 18-21 (Hutch Dano; nominated)