'Law & Order' returns for its 21st season, after a 12-year break

Back when the 1990s arrived, so did a TV show that refused to die. A procedural, this show was as new as the new decade and as old as TV itself. Built to last, this series' format was roughly based on a 1963-64 drama ("Arrest & Trial"), which ran for only 30 episodes while this would go on for a monumental 456.

And now, after a 12-year break, the 457th arrives Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. on NBC/4.

Whether "Law & Order" was canceled back in 2010 or is just now waking from the longest nap in TV history depends on what you read or whom you ask. News reports back then used the word "canceled," but creator Dick Wolf has long insisted the so-called Mother Ship was in a state of suspended animation all this time.

"Law & Order," in other words, never went anywhere but just got a well-deserved rest.

Speaking to the media recently about Sunday's return, Sam Waterston — back as Manhattan D.A. Jack McCoy — said Wolf "was talking about [this revival] five years ago and I don't think he's ever stopped talking about it. One of the reasons that we're back is because of his persistence and determination and his complete conviction that it was a terrible mistake to stop in the first place."

Laid up with laryngitis and unable to speak about the moment he's waited for all these years, Wolf did say in a recent statement that "there are very few things in life that are literally dreams come true. This is mine."

Unlike the typical reboot or "re-imagining" of the original series, "L&O" picks up as if no time has passed at all. The wheels of justice have continued to grind, and McCoy has continued to grind them. Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson, who appeared in seasons 18-21) has a new partner (Jeffrey Donovan) and boss (Camryn Manheim), but the 27th Precinct is as cluttered and cramped as ever, the décor still hard-boiled cop, circa 1990.

In fact, the show that refused to die almost didn't 12 years ago. According to industry reports at the time, "L&O" had been renewed for a 21st season, which would have pushed it into record territory as TV's longest-running prime-time drama. Instead, a drawn-out negotiation between Wolf and NBCUniversal over license fees soured and then-NBC chief Jeff Zucker abruptly dropped the ax. (Zucker was recently forced out as CNN President for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a subordinate.)

In a clench-jawed response to the cancellation, Wolf channeled 19th Century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli — "never complain and never explain," he said at the time — then started looking for a new network home. AMC and TNT both passed and a plan to revive "L & O" as a short-run NBC series in 2015 was tabled too. In the interim, Wolf expanded his prime-time real estate with other "L & O" spinoffs, and the "Chicago"/ "FBI" franchises.

Persistence — yes — but especially clout finally made this dream come true.

From a fan's perspective, "L & O" never truly went away. Reruns continue to air on WEtv, SundanceTV and BBC America, and to stream on various subscription services, including Hulu and Peacock. And in 2019, "Law & Order: SVU" achieved what the Mother Ship could not or has yet to: Twenty-one seasons on the air, surpassing "Gunsmoke" as primetime's longest-running drama (it's now up to 23).

But from the biggest fan's perspective — Wolf's — there was clearly some unfinished business here, and it's easy to see why. Over the 20-year run, "L&O" was among the most important series in New York production history. This was also one of TV's finest series, and winner of the 1997 Emmy for outstanding drama. The show explored every conceivable judicial dilemma, unraveled countless ethical ones as well. Infamous cases were ripped from headlines, those cases then re-litigated — always with names and specifics changed, or as this fig leaf that opened each episode reminded, "The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event."

One of the masterminds of this legendary run, "L&O's" longtime showrunner/head writer René Balcer, said in a recent phone interview that the secret to this historic run was that "you had the cops build the story — or case — in the first half and then in the second half, the lawyers unraveled the case and basically turned it on its head. That's where you'd get the questioning of ethics, and the process of the law and of the justice system."

Episode to episode, he said, "that was pretty consistent but we found surprising ways of doing it so we always kept the audience off balance. So certainly the format was hard to beat but we also had very engaging actors and characters that people wanted to spend time with every week. They trusted those characters and trusted the show."

Such trust, he said, was vitally important because "as an example, 25 years ago I wrote an episode about a Black motorist who was killed by four NYPD cops. That was 25 years before George Floyd, but viewers trusted us to go on this journey that they otherwise might not have wanted to go on."

Balcer said Wolf asked him to return to run the new "L & O" but declined because of other projects, including a series set in the Mideast. He also had a few concerns. This Rip Van Winkle arrives, he says, in a whole New World — post-pandemic New York, the increasingly divisive culture wars and an immersive social media landscape in which everyone knows everything or at least has an opinion on it. "People are not necessarily going to be tuning in to 'Law & Order' just to relive or reexamine some formative issue," he says.

He adds that "in various ways we reflected reality in the age of [longtime Manhattan district attorneys] Robert Morgenthau and Cyrus Vance Jr. The reality now is that there's a young Black D.A., a young Black female chief of the NYPD, and a Black mayor of New York City. The show has to reflect that reality."

In that recent call with reporters, Rick Eid, the new boss and longtime showrunner of "Chicago P.D.," said "we're going to try our best to reflect the world we live in now. I mean, 'Law & Order'' has been around for a long time, but 2022 is a unique moment in time and our stories and our characters need to reflect that. I think it will."