The Law & Order franchise has been part of American pop culture ever since the original series’ first episode aired in 1990. The TV police procedural has spawned several spinoffs, including, most notably, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which is still on the air after a quarter century. The shows, which take place in a wildly crime-ridden New York City, have mostly featured white police detectives and attorneys and almost no recurring characters of Asian ancestry.
One prominent exception is forensic psychiatrist George Huang (played by Tony Award–winning actor BD Wong), who appeared in more than 140 episodes of Law & Order: SVU between 2001 and 2015—although he was almost never featured in more than a few scenes. There are also relatively few episodes that focus on crimes involving Asian characters—a remarkable omission, considering that more than 15% of New Yorkers are of Asian descent.
In his brilliant National Book Award–winning 2020 novel, Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu features an L&O-like show, Black and White, on which the novel’s main character, a struggling actor named Willis Wu, longs to get a good, meaty role. As he pursues this dream, the novel grapples with what it means to be Asian American in a white-dominated culture. A new series adaptation, created and co-written by Yu and starring Jimmy O. Yang, delves even further into the book’s metafictional conceits in intriguing new ways. It premieres on Nov. 19.
As the novel’s narrator explains, there are only five categories of roles available for young Asian male actors on the show: “Background Oriental Male,” “Dead Asian Man,” “Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Boy,” “Generic Asian Man Number Two/Waiter,” and “Generic Asian Man Number One.” If an actor finally gets the latter role, the narrator notes, “you get stuck at Number One and hope and pray for the light to find you and that when it does you’ll have something to say…and will have everyone in Black and White turning their heads and saying wow who is that, that is not just some Generic Asian Man, that is a star, maybe not a real, regular star, let’s not get crazy, we’re talking about Chinatown here, but perhaps a Very Special Guest Star, which for your people is the ceiling, the terminal, ultimate position for any Asian working in this world, the thing every Oriental Male dreams of when he’s in the background, trying to fit in.” That “Oriental Male,” however, will never be to the star of the show—which, in the case of Black and White, is white cop Sarah Green. (Her Black partner, Miles Turner, in a fascinating moment, notes that the very title of the show identifies Turner not by name, but by color: “It says: BLACK.…I’m not a person. I’m a category. Giving me the lead doesn’t make me more of a person. If anything, less. It locks me in.”)
At other points, the novel details the life of Willis’ brother, who seemingly managed to get the greatest role of all (“Kung Fu Guy”), and his elderly, ailing father, who was once a martial arts expert himself but now plays “Old Asian Man” over and over again. As the novel goes on, Willis’ life and Black and White’s plot intertwine and tangle, and it’s soon unclear where one begins and the other ends. However, to reduce to the novel to its plot is to miss the point. In an L&O-esque trial scene toward the end—rendered, like many scenes, in teleplay format—Willis’ brother points at himself and asks, “Why doesn’t this face register as American?” It’s a rare book that can ask such cutting questions while also offering a hilarious takedown of cop shows and a cutting satire of the acting life—all while deftly playing with experimental storytelling styles. Yu achieves all of this and makes it a brisk read, to boot.
Yu, who’s written for several TV shows, including HBO’s Westworld, is also the creative force behind this less daring Hulu adaptation. The series still focuses on Willis (appealingly played by actor/stand-up comedian Yang) and broaches many of the same themes. However, it has a much more structured plot—not unlike those on L&O—focusing more strongly on a complex storyline involving Willis’ brother and less on flashbacks and character development. Wu’s pal, Fatty Choy (a hilarious Ronny Chieng) gets a lot more to do, and the series adds a few new characters—most notably, Det. Lana Lee (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Chloe Bennet), who, like Dr. Huang on L&O:SVU, is relegated to a bit part in her own investigation.
However, any distinction between Black and White and the real world is erased quite early. Wu isn’t a professional actor; he’s a restaurant worker who simply exists in the strange world of B&W. In that world, he very literally can’t venture outside strict boundaries; he can wander around Chinatown, for instance, but he can’t physically enter its police precinct—unless cops specifically invite him in. The world in which he lives intends him to be a Generic Asian Man, who exists only to dwell in and around the Golden Palace restaurant. The show’s drama comes from Wu’s growing determination to push back against these restrictions—not only because he has a mystery to solve, but because he wants far more out of life than his world allows.
Fans of the novel may feel let down by the series’ emphasis on workaday plot, which tames some of the book’s wilder impulses. Still, it makes sense to lean into the more rigid L&O structure when telling this story onscreen; Yu clearly understands audience expectations for such TV episodes, and he seems to take pleasure in slowly and effectively subverting them as the show goes on. The first five (out of 10) episodes were made available to reviewers—including the pilot, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Taika Waititi—and they present a lively and funny metafictional tale that pushes hard against the boundaries of the L&O format. And because it’s all overseen by Yu himself, the series’ new riffs and new players make it feel very much like an extended remix of the original work—a spinoff, of sorts, and a very entertaining one.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.