Law & Order Meets Its Match: Gunsmoke
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
It made it.
After spending yet another season's end on the bubble, Law & Order is being welcomed back to NBC for a 16-episode 20th season, where it will tie Gunsmoke as the longest-running prime-time drama on TV.
NBC hasn't officially announced the pickup, but sources are telling such things to Variety and other outlets.
Law & Order, the daddy of the modern-day procedural and the mother ship of creator Dick Wolf's L&O fleet, will most likely show up on the network's midseason schedule, as it did this year.
The detect-and-prosecute series, which still boasts a couple of thesps—Sam Waterston and S. Epatha Merkerson—from the 1990s, is more famous for its ever-changing cast than its nail-biting drama these days, but the show's holding its own in 2009.
Back in its Wednesday-night slot, L&O has pulled in about 7.5 million viewers a week, making it NBC's third most-watched scripted series this season, behind only ER and Law & Order: SVU, which has led the charge with 9.4 million but is facing a possible casting shakeup if Wolf can't come to terms with stars Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni.
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