John Shiban Latest Showrunner To Depart ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’; Matt Olmstead Rejoins As EP

Nellie Andreeva
·2-min read

In a Law & Order: Organized Crime shake-up, John Shiban has become the fifth showrunner to leave the series over the past four years. According to sources, his exit happened earlier this month, leading to a production pause. The Wolf Entertainment/Universal TV drama, which is moving to Peacock for its upcoming fifth season, is now back filming, with its original showrunner, Matt Olmstead, stepping in as executive producer. He remains executive producer/showrunner on another Wolf Entertainment/UTV drama, CBS’ FBI: International.

No new showrunner of Organized Crime has been named. Olmstead has been drafted back to help with the remaining scripts. Most Season 5 scripts have been written, with production on the 10-episode installment about halfway through, I hear.

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Olmstead stepped down as showrunner of Organized Crime before the Law & Order spinoff, which had received a straight-to-series order, had started production on its first season. He was succeeded by Ilene Chaiken, with the two of them, along with Law & Order boss Dick Wolf, credited as the series’ creators. (Olmstead and Wolf also co-created Chicago Fire spinoff Chicago P.D.)

Following showrunner stints by Barry O’Brien and Sean Jablonski (and a brief assist by SVU’s David Graziano, who oversaw the last three episodes of Season 3), Ozark vet Shiban took the reins of the series after the end of the WGA strike last year. He ran it for its fourth and last season on NBC, with Season 5 picked up by sibling streamer Peacock in May.

Organized Crime follows SVU‘s Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) in his return to the NYPD to work on the Organized Crime Task Force. At least some of its issues that have resulted in frequent showrunner changes could be related to the fact that the series has been an outlier in the Dick Wolf universe, a departure from his signature procedural brand with darker and serialized storytelling.

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