Welp, here we go. The head honchos behind the enduringly popular and frankly extremely good Law & Order series have successfully pitched a new spinoff series that will focus entirely on hate crimes. Y’know, crimes of a racially or prejudicially-driven intent. Hoo boy.
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Law & Order: Hate Crimes is set to be directly spun off of the existing Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which is itself on the cusp of exceeding the original Law & Order in terms of both longevity and episodes produced in the next year.
The new series, spearheaded by Executive Producer Dick Wolf – which I fully believe is his full legal name – and SVU showrunner Warren Leight – has been ordered directly to series by the NBC with a full 13 episodes set to be produced.
Like SVU, Hate Crimes will be set in New York City and will be based on the NYPD’s real-life Hate Crimes Task Force, the second-oldest bias-based policing unit in America. That elite unit of investigators maintains a zero tolerance policy regarding crimes of racial and prejudicial motivation.
As reported by Deadline, the official synopsis for the show was confirmed alongside the announcement of the series, and it is pure Law & Order.
Law & Order: Hate Crimes is set in New York City, where crimes motivated by discrimination are vigorously investigated by an elite, specially trained team of investigators. Going behind the headlines and viral videos, these diverse, dedicated and passionate detectives will stop at nothing to bring these criminals to justice.
First of all, hell yeah. But secondly, oh christ. Hell yeah, oh christ, hell yeah, oh christ. Repeat ad nauseam.
The series will launch as a direct SVU spinoff, meaning the squad will be introduced in an upcoming episode of Special Victims Unit before the show breaks away to form its own entity.
Obviously no word on cast is available at this point, but it’s likely the show will follow Law & Order‘s tried-and-true episodic structuring. Deviating from that path now seems like lunacy.
Will it be treated respectfully? Hopefully. Will it be any good if so? Probably. Will Twitter be an absolute garbage fire each time it airs a new episode? You bet your ass.
Hold onto your butts, mates. We’re going there.
