As the world turns, so does the cast of Law & Order.
Jesse L. Martin, who's been carrying Detective Ed Green's badge for nearly nine years, is leaving the procedural drama later this season.
Per trade reports, the 39-year-old actor had only signed on for 13 episodes of the NBC warhorse's 18th season, and he has one more to shoot in which his character will be written out of the show.
Anthony Anderson, 37, who pulled a few shifts with Law & Order: SVU's Christopher Meloni when Mariska Hargitay was on maternity leave (aka doing undercover work for the FBI) in 2006, will step in to partner with recent L&O addition Jeremy Sisto.
(So, that about does it for Anderson's previous series, Fox's K-Ville, apparently.)
Martin joined the cast of Dick Wolf's mothership in 1999 and spent five seasons hunting down bad guys with Jerry Orbach's Lennie Briscoe before having to readjust to Dennis Farina's Joe Fontana, Milena Govich's Nina Cassidy and, this year, Sisto's Cyrus Lupo.
The stage and screen star briefly took time out toward the end of the 2004-05 season to reprise his Broadway role of philosophy professor Tom Collins in the big-screen adaptation of Rent. During those episodes, Martin's character was supposedly recovering from a gunshot wound, and Farina temporarily paired up with The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli.
For some time, Martin has been attached to star in a biopic about R&B crooner Marvin Gaye, which has finally been given a title—Sexual Healing—and is set to begin production in late April or early May.
The musically inclined actor's other small-screen credits include a guest arc on Ally McBeal and a turn as the Ghost of Christmas Present in 2004's Kelsey Grammar-starring version of A Christmas Carol.
Anderson's recent résumé enhancers include a pivotal role in the 2007 Best Picture Oscar winner The Departed and guest spots on The Shield and ''Til Death.
Since its inception in 1990, L&O has had nine different main detectives, two lieutenants, three executive assistant district attorneys, seven assistant district attorneys (six of them women) and four district attorneys, including longtime first chair Sam Waterston, who moved behind the big desk this year after 13 seasons of imposing order.