I have a weakness for hearing people describe how they organize their bookshelves. Alphabetical, chronological, categorical or in rainbow order? Each option has its advocates and it’s a level of book nerdery that I can’t get enough of. I similarly love discussions about how people select their vacation locations, get good deals (without resorting to extreme couponing) and the intricacies of the various franchises of Law & Order.

The thing about Law & Order is that it’s been around forever. Well, not forever perhaps, but there were 20 seasons of original recipe, 10 of Criminal Intent and SVU is on season 20 and going strong. With so many years, and so many episodes, you’d think finding fellow fans would be easy. And yet.

I enjoy original recipe. I really don’t care for Criminal Intent. I continue to be loyal to SVU even though I think it’s about run its course and then some. Aside from Criminal Intent, I can usually discuss just about every episode of the shows. I’ve watched them all. Some many times.

With a combined 50 seasons of television, you’d think there should be plenty of people with whom I can engage in deep dive fangirl conversations. You would be wrong.

Until now.

Sort of.

I recently learned about …These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order podcast and OH. My. GOD. how did I not know about this earlier.

There's something fun about digging deep into any niche interest - how you order your books, how you select vacation spots, you methods for getting a good bargain and your favorite Law & order detective team.

…These Are There Stories is the kind of niche programming that podcasts are made for. Hosts Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie invite special guests to talk about various episodes. Constants on each episode include:

  • Questions about favorite detective teams and favorite prosecutorial teams. (My responses are a tie between Fin and Munch and Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green and then Jack McCoy and Alexandra Borgia.)
  • Discussion about individual episodes and plot successes or failures.
  • Acknowledgement of the common “Who’s that guy?” phenomenon we all experience when watching Law & Order, because seemingly everyone has been on the show.
  • Citing of the real-life stories on which episodes are based.

It’s so ridiculously nerdy and I love it.