Law & Order: Organized Crime began with octopus-laced humor amid dark material and grew more serious over time. Elliot Stabler began to grow a beard and go undercover. Unlike with SVU, crimes were not solved over the course of a single episode, and that was apparently a reason why the show isn’t considered to be as “mainstream” as its franchise colleagues. That much is true, but the Chris Meloni-starring series still draws a rabid enough fanbase that the awkward situation has worked out, sort of.