Law & Order: LA

Law & Order: LA (2010-2011), originally titled Law & Order: Los Angeles, is a Law and Order spinoff set in Los Angeles. It was intended to replace the original series, which ended its successful 20-season run in 2010. However, it suffered low ratings, despite attempts to move it around in the schedule and a mid-season Retool that killed off one character, moved another from the DA's office to the LAPD, and introduced a Transplant from the original series. It was canceled in May 2011, leaving several episodes from before the retool to be aired Out of Order.

Tropes used in Law & Order: LA include:

• Action Mom / Retired Badass: Teri Polo's character, who quit the force after becoming a mother. She might be a bit corrupt, or at least a little too eager to get a confession.
• As Herself: Khloe Kardashian-Odom
• Awesome McCoolname: Detective Rex Winters really lucked out like that.
• Badass Mustache: Jaruszalski has an epic copstache. He shaves it after Winter's death though.
• Broken Aesop: Sylmar Don't cheat or god will kill your kids.
• Bus Crash: Skeet Ulrich left mid-season. Alfred Molina's character was reassigned from DA to Homicide Detective while Ulrich's was killed off in Zuma Canyon.
• Call Back: At the start of "Benedict Canyon", Jaruszalski calls Morales 'counselor', a call back to when he was a DA.
• Cancellation
• Captain Ersatz: the Echo Park Family is a stand-in for the infamous Manson Family.
• Conspicuous CGI / Special Effect Failure: 10,000 acres of poorly computer-generated pot, which somehow looked even worse as a photo.
• Crossover: With Law and Order SVU when Terrence Howard's DA goes to defends his cousin and with Law and Order when Rubirosa moves to LA.
• Downer Ending: (see Wham Episode)
• Expy: The Lieutenant looks like an American version of the Detective Inspector, right down to the sweaters although the UK chief isn't gay, or at least hasn't been revealed as such.
• Fake American: Alfred Molina.
• Fake Nationality: Again, Molina. Playing as the Mexican-American Detective Ricardo Morales.
• Hide Your Gays: Technically, since these episodes take place before Winters' death but aired afterwards: The Hispanic Lieutenant gets in trouble after video of her recalling a time when she did racial profiling on a black man appears during the trial of a black man who shot up his all-Hispanic office because he thought they were all racists. It turned out that she was addressing a roomful of gay police officers (the same look of fear on her victims' face was the same as a lesbian who was beaten in NYC and she felt very ashamed) and didn't want to hurt the cops who hadn't come out of the closet or her young son. In the episodes after Winters' death but before this episode aired she and Morales seem to share a few unusually long looks (maybe she's actually bi, or they have some secret that would've been revealed next season?).
• Horrible Hollywood: The series is pointedly hostile toward leftist celebrities, reflecting Dick Wolf's politics. This is in contrast to the original L&O which was often accused of being too liberal -- a charge countered by McCoy (on a witness stand, no less!) in its final season.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the episodes are named for their Los Angeles locales.
• Important Haircut: Jaruszalski is seen clean shaven after Winters is murdered.
• Ironic Death / Dramatic Irony: The golfer's son, who hates his father for being a serial philanderer, kills the one woman who is most definitely not sleeping with him due her to being in love with another woman. She was also ready to start a Humiliation Conga on her "romantic rival" (in her head; the girlfriend was essentially gay for pay) after he mocked her, something the son would've gladly gotten behind.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The tagline for an episode dealing with a philandering golfer and his justifiably angry wife was "Oh yeah -- we're going there".
• Off on a Technicality: The serial killer (who appears to be based on the Grim Sleeper) from "Ballona Creek". He isn't free for long, though.
• Oh Crap: The look on Moralez's face when Jaruszalski is trying to hold very still after potentially triggering a bomb. However, Moralez gets bonus points for willing choosing to stay despite the risk.
• Pass the Popcorn: The main detectives, as they observe the killer from "Ballona Creek" being arrested by cops from another jurisdiction.

Winters: "It's like watching a cop movie."

• Prison Rape: Winds up being the motivation behind the murder in Echo Park.
• Retool: Sensing trouble, NBC dropped Skeet Ulrich and bumped Alfred Molina to top billing. This was explained by Morales losing faith in the legal system, returning to his old career as a cop. His old spot was filled by ADA Rubirosa, aka that ridiculously attractive lawyer from the original Law & Order.
• Refuge in Audacity: Morales getting the obstructionist father declared a member of a street gang in Harbor City
• Ripped from the Headlines: the history of the murder victim in Echo Park is an obvious Expy of the Manson Family.
  • Plus, of course it is Law and Order, episodes 1, 4, 5 and 6 are based in headlines as well.
  • I hoped they could've done one on the Yakuza liver transplants, although that's probably Criminal Intent's territory.
  • Rubirosa's first episode was based on one seriously twisted Canadian Air Force commander (the real-life interrogation really was that calm and polite, it just took about eight hours).
  • "Hayden Tract" is a trifecta of headlines: a Tuscon shooting massacre-parallel occurs and the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case are mentioned, as are prison therapy cages, er, "modules".
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money: (most of) The Moon Bay Crew; undoubtedly many others.
• Screwed by the Network: Sure, the ratings weren't that great, but what with being constantly shuffled around, going through a mid-season Retool (after which ratings improved) and then showing the episodes out of order so that the end-of-season Cliff Hanger played right in the middle of the season made a lot of fans think that NBC never gave the show a chance.
• Shout-Out: I want to believe a computer-game obsessed guy named Sheppard searching for someone named Freeman is this...
• Socialite: It's set in Los Angeles, so the cops and attorneys sometimes have to deal with very rich, very privileged suspects and witnesses.
• Tonight Someone Dies: Det. Winters we hardly knew ye.
• Verbal Tic: Luis "Bunnyman" Valdez got his nickname from the band Echo and the Bunnymen, because he has an odd habit of repeating what people say to him - like an echo. It's even described as "a verbal tic."
• Western Terrorists: A white American Islamic fundamentalist terrorist cell is behind the deaths of two boys in Sylmar.
• Wham! Episode: Zuma Canyon ends with Rex Winters dead, the guy who ordered the hit (on top of a hit on a real estate agent which included collateral casualties in the form of some of his family and four kids... since it was said agent's daughter's quincinera (think Sweet 15) party) gets away when the witness, an 11-year old boy, is killed (on orders from said guy) and Morales quits being a deputy district attorney and returns to the LAPD as a detective, after being frustrated with the justice system and prosecutorial politics, becoming Jaruszalski's new partner.