The Wait for Law and Order: SVU Season 25 Will Be Excruciatingly Long

Since 1990, Dick Wolf's Law & Order has been a staple of NBC's fall schedule, entertaining fans for over three decades. Despite the high ratings for the popular crime procedural and its spin-offs, such as SVU and Organised Crime, the network has chosen not to include SVU in its lineup for this coming fall, shelving it for the time being.

While some fans were quick to speculate that there had to have been some kind of a falling out between Wolf and NBC, the truth behind the decision is actually much more prosaic.

The WGA has been on strike since May, meaning that none of its members have been working on any scripts for film or television, and SVU has definitely been impacted by it. During the first month of the strike, NBC did not cancel the show and continued to confirm that the highly anticipated 25th season would return as usual in September. However, when SAG-AFTRA joined the strike last month, it became clear that Wolf would not be able to complete filming for a fall release, prompting NBC to remove SVU from its schedule.

Indeed, the 25th season of SVU is still not ready, and with the strike showing no signs of stopping, it appears the wait for fans is going to be agonisingly long. As it stands, NBC has placed SVU on a mid-season schedule, which means that season 25 will be premiering anytime between January and March 2024. Those who have been used to watching SVU in the fall for over two decades will undoubtedly struggle to adjust to this new reality and the extended wait.

There is no doubt the decision means one thing: we will probably never again see SVU premiering in September, as the entire release schedule has been permanently changed because of the strike, making Law & Order a winter or even a spring show now.

However, fans of the procedural should still be grateful, as the show plans to return and has not been cancelled due to escalating production costs like many other great shows out there.