Law & Order (And Your Memoir)

By Allison K Williams

When producer Dick Wolf created the first of the long-running Law & Order family of TV series, he split the show in half on purpose. In the early 1990s, it was difficult to sell an hourlong drama into syndication, and syndicated reruns were where the money was. Hence, two parts, as Wolf told the New York Times in 1992:

“The second half-hour is slightly shorter than the first,” Mr. Wolf says. “So you can run the cops one night, and the next night the lawyers, with ...