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Who owns network TV this fall? Dick Wolf. The 74-year-old crime drama impresario has — are you ready? — eight one-hour shows in prime time this season.
Here's the breakdown: CBS has three Wolf FBI shows stacked up on Tuesday nights. On Wednesdays, NBC fills its prime-time lineup with Chicago-based shows. ("Pretty soon, producer Wolf will have chronicled Chicago with more hours of entertainment than the combined novels of Saul Bellow, James T. Farrell and Nelson Algren,” wrote critic Ken Tucker.) And on Thursdays, Wolf's biggest hit, Law & Order: SVU — the longest-running prime-time live-action drama in TV history — and its new spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime anchor the NBC lineup.
"Dick Wolf is pretty much running prime-time TV,” says Showbiz 411 pundit Roger Friedman. “I can't think of anything like this in TV history.” And Wolf is far from done. He's currently developing his umpteenth Law & Order spinoffs for future seasons — why have eight shows on at once when you could have 10 or 12? — plus two reality shows for 2022, LA Fire and Rescue, about the Los Angeles Fire Department, and Final Moments, about real crimes and the emotional experience of the victims who died.
The genius behind Dick Wolf TV programming: Campbell's soup?
Wolf's shows signify more than just one man's inordinate success. They're part of the transformation of TV entertainment. Instead of freestanding shows, we've entered the era of interconnected shows. Like in the movies, where superheroes appear in one another's blockbusters (see: Marvel), TV is increasingly dominated by franchises — shows that occupy a single fictional universe, with crossover episodes and shared characters.
Wolf compares his shows to the many flavors of Campbell's soup. “It's my hope that viewers are comfortable with the brand, and they know no matter what type of soup they are buying, or show they are watching, they know they are getting a high-quality product,” he told Variety. “Familiarity breeds contentment.” Other non-Wolf crime and police procedural franchises are following suit this fall: NCIS presents its third spinoff, NCIS: Hawai'i, and CSI arrives with its latest, CSI: Vegas.
(Left to right) Eamonn Walker as Chief Wallace Boden in “Chicago Fire,” Missy Peregrym as Special Agent Maggie Bell and Zeeko Zaki as Special Agent Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan in "FBI" and Mariska Hargitay as Lieutenant Olivia Benson in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
Adrian S. Burrows Sr./NBC; Michael Parmelee/CBS; Virginia Sherwood/NBC
All the Dick Wolf shows arriving in September
But Wolf remains the king of the franchise TV hit. Here are the eight September 2021 shows that will make up what's called TV's “Wall of Wolf."
Dick Wolf Tuesdays
FBI (CBS, 8 p.m. ET)
New York's finest feds crack cases ripped from the headlines.
Watch it: FBI
FBI: International (CBS, 9 p.m. ET)
Without guns, the FBI's Prague team keeps Americans safe abroad. This new spinoff premieres in a crossover episode with the other FBI shows.
Read about it: FBI: International
FBI: Most Wanted (CBS, 10 p.m. ET)
The Fugitive Task Force nabs the worst of the worst, weekly.
