From Julia Roberts to Timothée Chalamet: 25 ‘Law & Order’ Guest Stars You May Have Forgotten
“Law & Order” has provided big breaks and resume fodder to hundreds, if not thousands, of actors over the years.
The NBC series, which will celebrate its 25th season Sep. 25, originally premiered in 1990 and still runs today, though there was that hiatus between 2010-2022.
It can feel like nearly every resident of New York City has had some spot as an extra or guest star. (Heck, even the writer of this very article appeared in the background of a courtroom scene in the Season 10 episode called “Gunshow.”)
It’s no surprise that among those scores of guest stars, several turned out to be at the start of brilliant careers, while others were stars in their own rights before stepping onto the set.
Ahead of the landmark launch of the new season, look back at some of the stars who popped up in arresting appearances over the years.
‘And Just Like That’ Ending: What Happens to Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte?
And just like that, “…And Just Like That” has ended on HBO.
After 33 episodes (preceded by 94 episodes of “Sex and the City”), Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and their assorted pals and fashions closed the wardrobe doors on Aug. 14 with a lot of loose threads tying up, many still left open and so much pie being eaten.
So how did things ultimately wrap up? Where do our leading ladies and men leave us? And just how did we go from Cosmos in clubs in the 1990s to pie in the kitchen in 2025? Let’s examine the final episode, appropriately called “Party of One.”
The 5 best TV moments you won’t see awarded at this year’s Emmys
This year’s Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 14 on CBS, are set to shine a spotlight on 25 different categories in the main broadcast. This undertaking could take over three hours. But it would take much, much longer to honor every great scene, performance and quirky coincidence to appear on TV in the last year. There are so many shows and so many ways to be compelled (and sometimes repelled) by their content.
And so, cue the trumpets! Here, The Envelope presents its own, deeply subjective awards honoring the greatest moments in television during the 2024-25 season — at least those that won’t get their proper recognition at the big show. Welcome to the 2025 Envy Awards!
How Does ‘Squid Game’ End? Who Wins the Final Game, Player 456’s Fate and More, Explained
After three seasons, hundreds of deaths, billions of Korean won handed out, and a seemingly infinite rollercoaster of twists and turns, “Squid Game” has now dropped its final episodes on Netflix.
A series that wasn’t originally designed for a second season, “Squid Game” became a phenomenon with hundreds of millions of views around the world.
Season 1 introduced audiences to the Korean series in which a secret game show was played on a remote island for the benefit of a few, wealthy, masked, VIPs, with only one winner allowed to take home the prize.
Seasons 2 and 3 returned that winner (Lee Jung-jae, who played Seong Gi-hun, aka Player 456) to the arena, but also delved into the lives of the armed, pink-suited guards and a bulldog detective determined to shut the whole system down.
Now that the final game (or so we think) has been played, who were the winners? Who were the losers? Let’s dig into what we know. But beware — things get dark in this “Game.”
6 popular TV reboots that discovered the secret to Emmy success
Every year, Emmy prognosticators weigh the chances of TV’s newcomers. But what about newcomers that are also old-timers?
Whether you prefer to call them remakes, revivals or reboots, reimaginations of beloved movies and TV shows are all the rage: Think of CBS’ “Matlock,” which swapped in Academy Award winner Kathy Bates for Andy Griffith as a charming lawyer who gets things done in the legal system; Peacock’s “Bel-Air,” which turned a multicam sitcom into a drama; or HBO’s “Perry Mason,” which was less about the courtroom than Mason as private investigator.
When it comes to awards season, though, reboots aren’t such a hot commodity. Max’s “Gossip Girl,” Paramount+’s “Frasier” and ABC’s “The Wonder Years” came and went with no wins, and continuations like NBC’s “Law & Order” and “Will & Grace,” Fox’s “The X-Files” and CBS’ “Murphy Brown” have generally not received the same love from voters as their original runs.
Not all reboots fizzle at the Emmys, though. Here are six examples of rethinks that not only brought back beloved series from the graveyard but made them award-worthy all over again.
Brandon Scott Jones on CBS’ ‘Ghosts’: ‘I enjoy playing characters that are desperate’
Surprise! CBS‘ Ghosts is quite a revolutionary endeavor, especially for a sitcom on a broadcast network. A big part of that is thanks to costar Brandon Scott Jones, who plays the ephemeral, late Isaac Higgintoot — a soldier who fought on the side of the American Continental Congress in the Revolutionary War.
Now, Isaac wasn’t a big fan of war — he preferred surrendering post-battle — and actually met his end not by a barrage of buckshot, but due to dysentery. Still, Isaac isn’t only revolutionary thanks to his character: He’s possibly one of the first American military men to adhere to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of being gay in the U.S. armed forces.
Elisabeth Moss on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ finale moment that gave her chills
Red cloaks. Stiff white bonnets. Bent heads. If there’s a single image that Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” leaves audiences with as it ends its six-season run this week, it’s this one: That of women in a dystopian anti-America called Gilead, evolving from anonymous sexual slaves into rebels, warriors and, sometimes, survivors.
But for “Handmaid’s” creator Bruce Miller and star Elisabeth Moss, who also directed several episodes in the final season, the series, based on the 1985 book by Margaret Atwood, was never about what the women wore. It was about the women inside the color-coded uniforms
Danielle Pinnock on playing Alberta in CBS’ ‘Ghosts,’ representation, and what’s next for the hit comedy
For the last four years, Danielle Pinnock has been a ghost — and she couldn’t be happier. As one of the large, spirited cast of CBS‘s Ghosts, Pinnock plays former Prohibition-era jazz singer Alberta, who died on New Year’s Eve 1928 after accidentally drinking poisoned moonshine. But in Pinnock’s hands, Alberta’s living her very best afterlife as the show wraps up its fourth season and looks forward to the now-guaranteed two seasons more ahead.
Part of Pinnock’s joy in the role, as she tells Gold Derby, comes from the way Alberta is written. “A lot of times what happens when you see any actor of color playing on broadcast television, we almost become decorations on a Christmas tree where we’re just fun to look at, but no one really cares about our storylines,” she says.
Save or Shred? On the Allure and Conundrum of Unpublished Novels
Is this your first novel?
Every author, at some point, fields this question. The non-writing world—encouraged up by Hollywood’s take on how the life of the author works—has been left to believe that publishing a book looks like this: Get inspired. Write the book (in approximately two months). Show the book, receive ecstatic encouragement. Achieve agent, achieve publisher, book comes out (again, to ecstatic encouragement). Rinse, repeat.
Here’s the truth: Most authors do not publish their first novel. Writers have a string of almost-rans, never-completeds, and works that never found publishing homes.
Regardless of where these works are literally kept, they’re referred to as “trunk” novels. Every author has one, two or ten, and they’re often only discovered posthumously.
‘I’ve gotten a high from the gavel’: Melissa Rauch on bringing ‘Night Court’ back to life and crafting Judge Abby Stone
Melissa Rauch is serious about comedy. Or maybe it’s just that in her role as Judge Abby Stone on NBC’s reboot of Night Court, she gets a power rush from waving her gavel around.
“What I’ve really gotten a high on in playing [Abby] is the judgy powers of having the decision in the palm of my hand,” she tells Gold Derby. “There is such a control that comes with that, just by making a decision and going like this—” she mimes banging, “and going for the gavel!”
