'Law & Order: Organized Crime' Gets Big Behind-the-Scenes Shakeup

Law & Order: Organized Crime's search for a showrunner is over. The NBC series has had bad luck when it came to showrunners. Chicago Fire executive producer Matt Olmstead was tapped to helm the Law & Order spinoff but departed in October 2020 before the show premiered. The L Word co-creator, Ilene Chaiken, came in to replace him. She left halfway through Season 2 and was replaced by Barry O'Brien, who co-created Hannah Montana. The interim showrunner was eventually replaced by Law & Order: SVU executive producer Bryan Goluboff.

After only three months, Project Blue Book executive producer Sean Jablonski took on the role for the third season but exited after six months because of creative differences. SVU's David Graziano took the reins for the final three episodes of the season. Now, yet another showrunner has been tapped, and hopefully, this one will last. TV Insider reports that Ozark executive producer John Shiban will be the showrunner for the Christopher Meloni-led series for its upcoming fourth season. If all goes well, perhaps beyond Season 4.

Shiban has credits on some major shows. He was a staff writer on The X-Files and worked on Breaking Bad and its spinoff, Better Call Saul, and Hell on Wheels, putting in time as a writer and director. Other credits include the Scream TV series, The Vampire Diaries, Torchwood, Supernatural, Star Trek: Enterprise, and more. He most recently was executive producer on Seasons 3 and 4 of Netflix's Ozark and even wrote four episodes total. Shiban was showrunner for Hulu's Shut Eye for the second season until it was canceled in 2018. It seems like Law & Order: Organized Crime is in very good hands. Hopefully, this one sticks.

Most of the Dick Wolf shows have gotten back into production following the end of the writers' strike. Organized Crime was not one of them because they were still finding a showrunner. Now that one has been found, it's possible that production will start soon on the spinoff. Nothing has been confirmed when the show will be getting back to work, but at least there shouldn't be anything else getting in the way. Not including the ongoing actors' strike, of course.

It's still going to be a while until Organized Crime returns for Season 4 and, with fewer episodes. However, the fewer episodes were already decided prior to the strikes, but it's unknown if there will be even less than the decided 13 episodes. More information will probably be coming out closer to the season's premiere or when production starts. For now, hope that the show's troubles behind the scenes have come to an end.