The Real Reason Law & Order: LA Was Canceled

Though NBC ended up taking Law & Order: LA off the air, it wasn't for a lack of trying to save it. The show's first and only season underwent a number of creative and scheduling changes to help its direction and ratings.  

Law & Order: LA debuted on September 29, 2010 to more than 10 million viewers, thanks in part to a lead-in from fellow spin-off series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. However, audiences began to drop off over its first eight episodes. Amid declining ratings, NBC and Wolf pulled Law & Order: LA from its schedule and Wolf, like he had done with his previous series, began making alterations to the show. Those tweaks ultimately led to a soft reboot of the series. Ulrich, Hall, and Boone's Law & Order characters all left the franchise, as L&O veteran Alana De La Garza was cast to help with the new creative direction. 

The changes happened without a production stop, but after going off the air in early December 2010, Law & Order: LA didn't release another episode until April 2011. Back on a new night with a new, lower-rated lead-in, Law & Order: LA's schedule — and thus plot — was scrambled as reboot episodes aired before those featuring old cast members. Instead of experiencing an increase in ratings due to all these changes, Law & Order: LA had half its former audience when it returned to the small screen.

"Law & Order: LA I think we just didn't get it off the ground right," Bob Greenblatt, then-chairman of NBC Entertainment, told reporters in May 2011 (via The Futon Critic). "It was put on the schedule without a pilot last fall before I arrived. There was all kinds of chaos going on: the show did well then it was taken off. In a different scenario, that might have worked better, but we just thought it wasn't a strong enough player to continue into next season."

In the end, all that tinkering to help save Law & Order: LA wound up causing its demise.