Law & Order Toronto criticized as unrealistic after showing Toronto Police trying to solve crimes
TORONTO – The Law & Order order spinoff series set in Toronto is being described highly unrealistic, as it depicts the Toronto Police repeatedly attempting to actually solve crimes and do police work.
John Brimshaw, a television critic for The Toronto Star, cited a baffling early episode where citizens come forward with reports of multiple missing persons in a specific neighborhood. The Toronto police take the reports seriously and end up uncovering a serial killer, instead of just ignoring the reports and then accidentally catching the serial killer a year and half later.
Globe and Mail arts columnist Kathleen Karter was equally critical in her review, finding one episode about an auto-theft ring particularly far-fetched. In it, the Toronto Police track the ring to a railyard and recover hundreds of vehicles instead of just telling victims to call their insurance companies, and, when given the exact location of the stolen vehicles by citizens with AirTags hidden in their cars, claim they don’t have jurisdiction over trains.
Critics noted other unrealistic details throughout the first handful of episodes, citing multiple scenes depicting police taking citizen complaints seriously, driving the speed limit when not on emergency calls, and, perhaps most egregiously, a number of scenes that depict the detectives on the show actually living in the city of Toronto as opposed to Woodbridge.
“They definitely overcorrected in trying to make for good TV,” echoes self-admitted Law & Order superfan Phil McAllister. “In an episode about gangs extorting businesses, I naturally assumed it’d depict the dramatic inner workings of the Toronto Police Communications Department drafting a press release telling business owners, ‘Hey, stop being extorted.’ But instead, I saw 45 minutes of detectives tirelessly tracking down key players in the extortion ring, setting up stings, and ultimately taking them down. What?”
“It was all just a little bit too Hollywood,” McAllister mused.
According to production insiders, directors had a difficult time finding Canadian actors who could get in the headspace of earning more than six figures after overtime. Meanwhile, the writers room struggled with a lack of source of material.
“It’s hard to make 45 minute episodes out of 4 minutes of police work,” said one writer on the show, on background. “Nobody wants to watch a TV show that mostly takes place in a Coffee Time parking lot.”
The producers of Law & Order Toronto say they hear the critics, and have promised the second season will be more realistic, with plot lines involving setting up automated speed cameras, giving tickets to cyclists, and a supersized sweeps episode where they just go to town on a bunch of G20 protestors.
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