L&O Boss Stands Trial

It would be a crime to confuse Fox's new legal drama, The Jury, with NBC's midseason contender, Law & Order: Trial by Jury — or at least so says Dick Wolf, the creator of L&O and its umpteen spin-offs. Rumors that the latest addition to the franchise will be set entirely in the deliberation room are "absolutely incorrect," the executive producer tells TV Guide Online. "There will be one or two scenes in the fourth act every week in the jury room, but you couldn't set a [whole] show in the jury room, I don't think."

However, Wolf concedes that TBJ — potentially an all-star affair featuring Jerry Orbach, Candice Bergen and Frasier dad John Mahoney — will not adhere as strictly to the time-tested L&O format as, say, SVU. "The cops are not as big as they are on L&O because it's set in the courthouse," he explains. "It's not law... it's order. The setup is a look at the criminal-justice system from indictment through verdict.

"This show will feature more of an omniscient perspective for everybody who is in the courthouse [than do the other series in the L&O stable]," he continues. "In other words, you'll have scenes with the prosecutors and the cops the way we do in all of the other shows, but you also have major scenes where you're just dealing with the defense or the judges or the jury."

As a result, viewers may have more insight into a particular case than the principals who are trying it. "One of the most interesting aspects of the show is when the jury goes into the jury room," Wolf previews — not that he's comparing it to The Jury, we hasten to add. "The audience will know not only what information they've seen, but what info has been kept from them or kept out of evidence. They will be slightly ahead of the jurors in terms of what knowledge they bring into those deliberations."