| − | |Police and court drama similar to ''[[Perry Mason]]'' in which the first halves of each episodes were the crimes, investigations and arrests of suspects and the second halves were the trials and aftermaths thereof. Although ultimately promoting law enforcement in a positive light, the series eventually started pushing more liberal themes, usually by pushing twists that have the ones most likely considered guilty being in fact innocent, while white-collar characters are depicted as the villains, which former lead Michael Moriarity implied was due to the growing influence of one of the show's showrunners, Dick Wolf's hard-left politics.<ref>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/michael-moriarty/2009/12/14/law-orders-persistent-leftward-lurch</ref> | + | |Police and court drama similar to ''[[Perry Mason]]'' in which the first halves of each episodes were the crimes, investigations and arrests of suspects and the second halves were the trials and aftermaths thereof. Although ultimately promoting law enforcement in a positive light, the series eventually started pushing more liberal themes, usually by pushing twists that have the ones most likely considered guilty being in fact innocent, while white-collar characters are depicted as the villains, which former lead Michael Moriarity implied was due to the growing influence of one of the show's showrunners, Dick Wolf's hard-left politics.<ref>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/michael-moriarty/2009/12/14/law-orders-persistent-leftward-lurch</ref> Is followed by a spinoff called ''Law & Order: SVU'' that was far more overtly liberal in its outlook (see its entry in [[Essay:Worst Liberal TV Shows]] for more details). |