Law & Order Toronto is here. Does it live up to the hype?

Law & Order fans, grab some popcorn and dust off your limited legalese, because the first episode of the highly anticipated Toronto spinoff premiered last night. 

Law & Order is one of the most popular police procedural and legal drama franchises of all time, first airing in September of 1990. After going on an 11 year hiatus, the series returned in 2022 for its 21st season.

Kathleen Munroe and Aden Young star as Frankie Bateman and Henry Graff, respectively, in Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. 

According to executive producer Erin Haskett, the spinoff has been in the works for years, but that it took some convincing that it could be made on budget with Canadian talent. 

Writer Amil Niazi, visual artist Syrus Marcus Ware and University of Toronto professor Michelle Cho join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share their first impressions of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent and their opinions on police mysteries.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, plus first impressions of Netflix's new live action adaptation of beloved animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: Amil, you're no stranger to Law & Order. You're a Law & Order walking encyclopaedia, as far as I can tell. When you watch the show, how does it stack up?    

Amil: Yes, it's true. I've seen every single Law & Order and all of the spinoff episodes, including the original Criminal Intent. 

It is a formula. Obviously, all procedurals are. We're so familiar with the lexicography of procedurals at this point as a society. And this new one, it definitely follows it. It's like paint by numbers at this point. But what's funny is that there have been so many spin offs at this point. There's like at least four versions of Law & Order on the air right now. 

And yet this still felt like it was grasping a little bit. The one liners fell so flat, I could hear the thud when they said them. And I kind of consider Law & Order to be the prestige of procedurals. It didn't quite get there and it really was like a Canadian version of an American show. 

Elamin: Michelle, what was your reaction to watching the first episode of Law & Order Toronto? 

Michelle: I actually really appreciated seeing these places that are familiar to me. Toronto getting to play itself versus standing in for whatever other North American city. So that's probably my favourite part of the show, although I did catch some discrepancies like where did they go across from Nathan Phillips Square? And how did they race there? 

I'm admittedly not as huge of a fan of the Law & Order franchise. But I have watched a lot of it over my lifetime because it's been around since 1990. It was very retro to me to watch this. Even though the storyline is super current, or it's aiming to be, you hear the "DUN DUN" and it just has a throwback feel.

Elamin: It's an interesting time for Toronto to be getting a cop show, Syrus, because the city's mayor, Olivia Chow, just approved a massive increase to the Toronto police budget after actually saying she wasn't going to do it. How did you feel watching this first episode while this political drama plays out in the real world?  

Syrus: I mean, this is what we in the biz call "copaganda," which is basically propaganda that is focused on cops. First of all, I just have to say, I have never seen a show with so many t-shirts and blazers. What was happening with that? I don't know why there were so many of those everywhere. There were cops running, running in every scene — walking, having a conversation. Just this idea that they were running all the time seems so unrealistic compared to what Toronto cops actually do.

Elamin: I mean, when you think about the relationship between the real headlines and how we watch them and digest them in forms like Law & Order, what kind of impact do you think that has on viewers when we're digesting the news?    

Amil: The whole thing about Law & Order is that these crimes are ripped from the headlines. That's part of the sell of the show. And again, it's been on for 20 plus years. So I think we're very desensitised to that idea at this point. We have seen depictions of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, Donald Trump's crimes. We have lived through so many iterations of real life, gore and tragedy through this show and through other shows like it. 

What I think is kind of interesting with this is that we are not as used to that concept as Canadians seeing some of our Canadian crime stories depicted and dramatised in this fashion. I think for the most part, we're quite sensitive to that in our media and in our coverage of these types of stories. I've seen this debate pop up when it comes to the crimes of Paul Bernardo, for example. And whether they should be dramatised and if it's appropriate to watch that kind of thing. So that's a debate that I think will be really interesting to have as the season goes on, is how do we feel as Canadian viewers, are we comfortable with the dramatisation of some of our bigger tragedies? 

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview produced by Jane van Koeverden