Dick Wolf Courtesy of NBC
'Law & Order: You the Jury' will find viewers serving as jurors in real-life legal cases.
NBC is making it official on the planned legal doco-series with Law & Order maestro Dick Wolf. The network has handed out a series order to Law & Order: You the Jury.
As the title implies, it's an unscripted extension of sorts for the drama franchise — where real-life legal cases play out on a live TV courtroom and viewers determine the verdict. (Don't expect any murder trials.) The audience will also be prompted to engage in the proceedings throughout the hour, chiming in on veracity of witnesses and persuasiveness of evidence.
The interactive approach to reality has been attempted several times in the last few years, most notably by ABC's Rising Star and NBC's Million-Second Quiz, though none have struck a chord with audiences. Also from Top Chef producers Magical Elves (Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz) and Wolf Reality's Tom Thayer, Law & Order: You the Jury is yet another NBC move into live programming. The network debuted its latest live effort, Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris, to solid results on Sept. 15.
Wolf, NBC's golden boy for procedural drama for decades, has been making more and more unscripted inroads in recent years. His TNT show with Magical Elves, Cold Justice, has been the first reality program on the Turner cable network to truly pop — already prompting a spinoff. Earlier this year, Wolf added A&E's Nightwatch to his unscripted roster.
You the Jury joins fellow Wolf series Law & Order: SVU, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med on NBC's schedule, bringing the mega-producer a whopping five series on a single broadcast network.
Both Wolf and Magical Elves are repped by WME
