Law & Order Creator's 2024 True Crime Series Just Dropped on Netflix

Summary

• Dick Wolf's procedurals have been the leading series on television for two decades.
• And now the famous producer has decided to enter the streaming niche.
• His new series premiered March 20 on Neftlix — and it's not fiction, but true crime.

The king of crime drama television is undoubtedly Dick Wolf, who has given the world such pop culture phenomena as the Law & Order franchise, the FBI franchise and, of course, One Chicago. But while the series in each of those franchises continue to air on NBC and command all the attention on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Wolf himself has decided to conquer new formats, especially as we've entered the era of streaming services. But the standard procedurals are still more about traditional broadcasting, so the famous film and television producer had to step on the path of new formats to attract the appropriate audience.

Thus, the miniseries Homicide: New York was released, featuring the most notorious crimes committed, as the title suggests, in New York. Essentially, the new show is based on everything we love about Law & Order. Except that the plots of each episode are much more gruesome and unpleasant. After all, this is a true crime documentary based on real murder cases. The series has been released on Netflix, and the day after its release, it has already generated no small amount of excitement.

What Is Dick Wolf's New Project About?

Fans of the famed producer's work are probably aware that the new series on Netflix is not Wolfe's first foray into the true crime genre. Since 2013, the series Cold Justice has been on the air, first on TNT and now on Oxygen. The series follows a team of investigators, including former and current law enforcement officers, who are dedicated to reopening the coldest cases. In addition, the spin-off Cold Justice: Sex Crimes was released in 2015.

And so, on March 20, the Netflix library was enriched with a new five-episode documentary series, Homicide: New York, created by Dick Wolfe with executive producers Tom Thayer, Jane Lipsitz, Nan Strait, Adam Kassen and Dan Cutforth. Each of the five episodes focuses on the most famous and gruesome murders ever committed in New York City: The first episode follows the events of 2001, when five tied up people were found in an apartment above the Carnegie Deli in midtown Manhattan, two shot dead and the other three critically wounded.

But this true crime is not even about the cases themselves, but about the people involved in the investigation and prosecution. In this way, Homicide uses the Law & Order template, focusing on colorful personalities whose charisma, spiced with a New York accent, oozes across the screen.

What Are Critics and Audiences Saying about It?

According to the reviewers, what makes Homicide a great true crime experience is that it is not just a procedural show based on real cases: each one demonstrates how dark the underbelly of New York can be, how much people are consumed by the urban environment and cynicism. Some of the cases will turn out to be random acts of violence, some will be contract killings, and some will simply be motivated by greed. All of this comes from the accounts of those directly involved in the investigation of these murders.

Dick Wolfe's Next Steps

But it looks like Dick Wolfe's collaboration with Netflix will not end with this series. After Homicide: New York, Netflix will release a second season called Homicide: Los Angeles, which will obviously tackle the most vicious crimes in LA history in the same gritty manner.

The release date remains unknown for now, except for reports that the series will air sometime in 2024. It probably won't happen until midsummer or fall at the earliest.