When NBC announcedLaw & Order: Organized Crimewould move to Peacock, there were mixed feelings about it, but it was ultimately a mistake for the Dick Wolf show. The season 5 premiere aired on NBC alongside episodes ofLaw & OrderandLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit, but the rest of the season streamed on Peacock.
WhileOrganized Crimeappeared consistently in the Peacock top 10 TV shows, peaking at #2 in May (behind SVU as #1), the series had some big changes with the move to Peacock. For instance, the episode count was dropped again after NBC already made the cut from 22 to 13 episodes for season 4. On Peacock,Organized Crimehad 10.
Law & Order: Organized Crime Will Return To NBC In Fall 2025
Organized Crime Returns To Its Old Timeslot
When NBC first announced its fall 2025 TV schedule,Law & Order: Organized Crime was nowhere on it. The network has shifted a few things around, however, which includes movingThe Hunting Partyseason 2to midseason andgivingOrganized Crimeits original Thursday at 10:00 PM timeslot back.
Law & Order: Organized Crimeseason 5 will begin airing on NBC on June 17, 2025.
This meansOrganized Crimeseason 5will re-air on the network and will close out aLaw & Orderblock of television on Thursday nights:
This decision is a great one for bothThe Hunting PartyandOrganized Crime. It allows the creative team onThe Hunting Partya little more time to bounce around new ideas for the sophomore season, while it allows NBC to see what the live ratings forOrganized Crimecould be in season 5.
This also means thatOrganized CrimestarChristopher Meloni has time to work on his newseries before/ifOrganized Crimegets a season 6 renewal, so there likely would not be any scheduling conflict for him.
The ratings for season 5 ofOrganized Crimeon NBC will likely be weighed against the numbers for viewings of new episodes on Peacock to determine which platform is the better fit for the show. They could help NBC and Peacock decide how to move forward with the series.
Why Organized Crime Is Better Off On NBC Than On Peacock
NBC Makes The Law & Order Ties Stronger
There are plenty of advantages to putting a crime series on streaming instead of network television. The story subjects can be darker; there are fewer restrictions on language and subject matter on streaming in general. Streaming also usually offers series a bigger budget than they would get on network TV.
Law & Order: Organized Crimeis better off on NBC than Peacock becausethe network TV benefits outweigh the streaming ones. With the series on NBC and available to stream the next day on Peacock, fans would get the best of both worlds.
Those who do not have access to the streamer could still watch it, and they would not have to wait a potential two years between seasons. Even if NBC opts for lower episode counts, as they did withOrganized Crimeseason 4, there is still a faster turnaround time for viewers to actually see the episodes.
In addition to that,all of theLaw & Orderseriesactually set in New York airing on the same network would make crossover much easier. The strength in the shows comes from their shared universe. There is a rich history of the characters knowing one another across the shows and being able to help one another on cases.
In the early days ofSVU,Law & Order’sLenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) used to stop by to give a hand on cases, or even hand off investigations that he realized would be a better fit for the other squad. His nephew (played by Orbach’s real-life son) was even an SVU detective.
That kind of connectivity between the shows helped to build the world. Whiledecades later, the world is firmly established, maintaining those connections keeps the world feeling groundedand real.
Stabler (Meloni) was able to cameo in the 2025Law & OrdercrossoverwithSVU, but he was not a major part of it, and the events had nothing to do with the storylines inOrganized Crime.
There is some maintaining of those franchise connections in Stabler and Benson (Mariska Hargitay) keeping up with one another in guest appearances in recent seasons ofOrganized CrimeandSVU, but there is not enough to make the shows feel like part of the same world. Airing on NBC helps to remedy that.
Whether or notLaw & Order: Organized Crimewill get to make a permanent move back to NBC remains to be seen, but at least season 5 is back on the network that has been home to the franchise since 1990.
