has always been an equal-opportunity offender, and if a Democratic administration had implemented this despicable (torture) policy, our show would have taken them to task for it." Balcer was showrunner for Law & Order: Criminal Intent through the fifth season. In March 2007, Balcer returned to Law & Order at the end of its 17th season as executive producer and head writer. He continued on as showrunner through the show's 20th and final season, writing and directing the show's series finale "Rubber Room", which the New York Times called the "best finale of all" that season's TV series. In June 2010, he was hired as showrunner of the Law & Order spinoff, Law & Order: Los Angeles. LOLA, as it was called, was cancelled after one season, with Balcer again writing and directing the series finale. Balcer then rewrote the series finale of Law & Order Criminal Intent, bringing to a close his long association with the Law & Order franchise. In 2012, Balcer created the series Jo, an English-language cop drama set in Paris and starring Jean Reno, Wunmi Mosaku and Celyn Jones. Shot in Paris, the eight-episode series premiered internationally in January 2013. Jo was ranked fourth in a listing of the Top 30 Best French Detective Series. In 2013, he served as showrunner and executive producer of the CBS pilot, The Ordained, with Charlie Cox. In 2013, Balcer made two short videos: Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi, was shot in China and is a zen meditation on the dynamics of tea leaves in fluid, the video is available on Vimeo and YouTube; the other, Blue Sky, was shot in Nice, France and is an "unhinged zen piece" featuring the music of Chinese contemporary composer Huang Ruo, the video is available on Vimeo and YouTube. In 2015, Balcer wrote and produced For Justice, a pilot for CBS directed by Ava DuVernay, and developed a series about the porn world in the early 1980s with Owen Wilson for the Starz channel entitled WonderWorld,. In 2016, the CBC and NBC green lighted Balcer's environmental thriller The Council set in the Canadian Arctic. In 2017, Balcer co-directed, co-wrote and produced the documentary Above the Drowning Sea, narrated by Julianna Margulies and Tony Goldwyn. The documentary tells the epic story of thousands of Austrian Jewish refugees who escaped the Holocaust and found refuge in Shanghai. The film has been the Official Selection