The show that started it all! Even while many of us were little kids, Law & Order was kicking some serious butt and has been doing so since 1990, right until the time the series got over in 2010. The name implies two decades of unchallenged supremacy in the genre of crime drama.

Police dramas and criminal thrillers were never so enticing. Through the ever-changing characters and storylines, the sheer ingenuity of the show has always shone through. The show began in 1990, when Bill Clinton had just become the American President, and mobile phones were still a distant reality. And helping the show through a swashbuckling 20 years is a variety of characters, some that stayed for long, few others that didn’t.

In a path breaking attempt by the show’s creators to jazz up the crimes and the criminals for the audience, the show regularly featured plots based on recent happenings and news. And each of those incidents would be fictionalized and turned in to a thrilling storyline.

Law & Order showed both the Police Department and the State Attorney’s office in a completely novel light. The suave and hard working police officers changed the way the audiences perceived them. Arguably, the characters of Jack McCoy and Lt. Van Buren typified the change in public perception in the best possible way.

The frequent collaborations between the Police Department and the District Attorney’s office, that often turned into confrontations as egos and ideas clashed over certain complicated cases. In the end, it would be up to the senior officers to lead the way and get the job done.

With Law and Order, the whole genre of crime procedural dramas took off in a big way. The show even inspired a spin off called Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in 1999.

Unprecedentedly exciting storylines, highly charged courtroom scenes, with just the right amount of emotion and action, mixed together with the zeal of the police officers, attorneys and their terrible cousins- criminals and crooks, are what that made this show groundbreaking in every sense.