when leight was asked how he felt running what is currently the last remaining "law & order" series, he responded, "it's a storied franchise, and i don't want to go down with the last ship. i'd rather this be the turning point or a regeneration of the franchise. it was made clear to me that — and this was before chris had left — if the show kept going the way it was going, at most it had two years left. probably just one. if you keep doing everything you've been doing, you'll be gone. that's an interesting message to get when you take a new job. i have to hope that ... the changes being made this year lead to another five years for this show. and clearly, this summer made the case for why this show needs to be on the air. it felt like every week there was a story about powerful men behaving badly or strange goings on. in new york, the number of murders is down 75 percent from its peak, but that's not the case with this kind of crime at all. we have a wall in the writers' room that has 50 "new york post" headlines on it from the summer. it's not like the show's original conceit doesn't make sense anymore."