NBC Is Building Its Primetime Around Dick Wolf Again

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Published Jul 22, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

While NBC’s Dick Wolf has been a major TV creator for decades, at this stage, the network is relying on the producer’s output more than ever in 2026. Best known for the Law & Order franchise, Dick Wolf is one of the most prominent producers on television. While Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan may have more shows in production, Wolf’s TV empire has lasted decades and spanned some of the longest-running network TV hits in history.

Like fellow super producers Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, many of Wolf’s projects have become successful enough to spawn spinoffs, some of which have then spawned spinoffs of their own. Although Law & Order originally began back in 1990 and ran until 2010, its 1999 spinoff, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, has arguably eclipsed the original series in terms of popularity. Law & Order was revived in 2022, but Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has released an astounding 594 episodes across 27 seasons since the show began.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Wolf’s prolific output. In the Law & Order franchise alone, there are the spinoffs Criminal Intent, Law & Order: UK, Law & Order: LA, Law & Order True Crime, Law & Order: Organized Crime, and Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, while 2018’s FBI was successful enough to spawn the spinoffs FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International. 2012’s procedural Chicago Fire has lasted 14 seasons and almost 300 episodes, but also spawned the spinoffs Chicago P.D, Chicago Med, and Chicago Justice in that time.

NBC’s Entire Wednesday Night Lineup Centers On Dick Wolf Shows

This is all great news for Wolf, but it might be a little worrying for his network TV home, NBC. After all, despite green lighting David Boreanaz’s upcoming reboot of The Rockford Files as part of its 2026 schedule, NBC remains remarkably reliant on Wolf’s productions heading into the new TV season. Currently, NBC’s Wednesday evening lineup is composed almost entirely of Wolf’s shows.

Both Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU were renewed, and although Law & Order: Organized Crime was canceled, the writing was on the wall for that spinoff ever since the series moved to Peacock. Between One Chicago and the Law & Order franchise, Wolf's shows now have five hours of NBC primetime each week at the moment, which leaves little room for the network to green light new procedurals when they could instead simply add to an existing Wolf property.

Is NBC Too Reliant On Dick Wolf’s Franchises?

At first glance, this may seem harmless. The arrival of The Big Bang Theory’s upcoming spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe proves that, even after the prequels Young Sheldon and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, there is still an appetite for more from a sitcom franchise that started back in 2007. As long as Wolf’s shows remain similarly consistent in their popularity, it seems almost inevitable that they would be renewed and spawn further spinoffs.

However, this analysis ignores the new shows viewers aren’t getting in their stead, particularly when it comes to NBC procedurals specifically. With Chicago P.D, Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, Wolf’s shows take up a lot of proverbial oxygen when it comes to NBC’s procedurals. Promising pilots like Bones star Emily Deschanel’s Key Witness are often passed up while spinoffs of spinoffs of Wolf’s shows are green lit.

Focusing on a criminal profiler who centers her analysis on the victims of crime instead of their perpetrators, Key Witness sounded like an original, innovative reinvention of the criminal profiler archetype already seen in Hannibal, Criminal Minds, and Mindhunter. However, since Dick Wolf’s NBC shows like Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU are among the only procedurals produced by the network in 2026, viewers will never know how good the show might have been.

Release Date September 13, 1990

Showrunner Rick Eid

Directors Constantine Makris, Edwin Sherin, Jace Alexander, David Platt, Matthew Penn, Martha Mitchell, Don Scardino, Christopher Misiano, Jean de Segonzac, Michael Pressman, Daniel Sackheim, Alex Chapple, Fred Berner, Fred Gerber, Gloria Muzio, James Frawley, Jim McKay, Vincent Misiano, Michael W. Watkins, Vern Gillum, Alex Hall, Dann Florek, Darnell Martin, David Grossman

Writers René Balcer, Matt Witten, David Slack, Aaron Zelman, David Wilcox, Morgan Gendel, Pamela J. Wechsler, Lynne E. Litt, Marc Guggenheim, Stephanie Sengupta, Scott Gold, Walon Green, Gerry Conway, Sean Jablonski, Nick Santora, Chris Levinson, Christine Roum, Gordon Rayfield, Hall Powell, Keith Eisner, Julie Martin, Gia Gordon, Joe Gannon, Jonathan Collier