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I forgot about that! And not only 9 seasons, but the entire NCIS franchise too. Between that and FBI CBS should be paying royalties to NBC's programming department. It's not just NBC though. I've heard many TV writers and producers say that networks interfere more than ever, insisting on approval of details that previously were left to the show's staff. The only difference I've noticed is that CBS seems to be willing to get out of the way for folks like Chuck Lorre or Dick Wolf for that matter (with FBI) who have a track record and are making money. The other networks seem to care more about their prestige in the industry than ratings and profit at least at the level of those actually actively making programming and creative decisions. At least until their shows fail because the people they want to impress aren't watching network TV anyways and the creators who can do what they want to do would rather do their thing on streaming services or cable where they are actually allowed to make creative decisions. Heaven forbid you have a series that is popular with folks over 40 in the midwest that is rerun on cable for years and makes everyone involved rich or a sitcom that makes regular people laugh. Better to have 6 hours a week of America's Next A Cappella Sensation right? And NBC has occasionally shied away from controversy with the franchise. Sometimes in stupid ways. Why would you approve a story about the Olympics if you aren't going to tell the complainers to shut up and use your money to wipe away their tears? As far as writers are concerned I am sure they can get plenty of skilled writers, both new and old. My fear with the writing is that they will be under mandates to do something other than tell the best L&O stories they can. And as far as nuance is concerned, I would argue that the even the later years had nuance. For example Bernard was quite nuanced in his views, usually socially conservative and economically populist with a libertarian streak that meant he was not always predictable in his reactions, but was still a fully developed character that was never just a way for the writers to make an argument or have conflict.

I agree both with the skepticism and the worry although it is a real possibility that they get a number of the old writers back at least for an episode or two which would help. I don't think there was any insurmountable difficulty in executing the concepts on the part of the producers. What little news has leaked out has suggested that the difficulties were in casting - specifically that NBC insisted on micromanaging the casting process, and to a lesser extent that they were nervous about controversy and some of the proposed stories, which makes anyone with half a brain wonder why they would approve a concept that was inherently controversial. OC came packaged with a bankable star so it was easier to get it done. Or at least harder for NBC's "creative" executives to sabotage after the higher ups approved and announced it. And I fully expect them to try to do the same thing here.

The Good: The actress playing the victim. She did a really good job and almost made me care about her even though she wasn't written as anything more than a plot device and a stereotype. Carisi. He was the only regular who was worth watching this week as the rest either had nothing to do (Fin) or were annoying (Benson, Rollins, the OC crew). It is always nice to see Benson not pull a miracle out of her ass, even if we know it may not last. No Benson-Stabler hookup! The Bad: It was another crossover episode that was not really an episode of the series, but a trailer for OC. I like OC but I like it much more when it's its own thing. Not when it's forced into SVU. It feels like they are trying to hide how there are no characters and no ideas left at SVU right now. The promo for next week. As I've said many times before I never trust the NBC promo monkeys, but if there is any truth there it's going to be a third episode in a row on the same theme. I want to see some sexually based offenses used to explore a variety of social issues. A variety, Not the same one over and over. We've seen that fail already. They didn't give Fin anything to do. He has a couple of good lines and made the most of what he had, serving as the voice of the viewer, but he was wasted. I know I'm going to be annoyed when he has one of his weeks off knowing they blew one of his episodes on this. Rollins. Again she is a giant hypocrite with no indication that anyone involved realizes it. I mean how could Benson listen to her lecture her about not putting up with a man's emotional distance etc. without telling her to fuck all the way off? The script. I don't think there was a single original moment anywhere. Including the OC elements that have only been around for one season. Overall this was a dud, in part because of flat writing and in part because it wasn't really an episode per se, but rather an advertisement for/ episode of OC weakened by tying it to the zombified corpse of SVU.

Ooh. I like this idea. And if the first season doesn't quite work they can retool by having him quit the DAs office and go back to being a detective and bring over Rubirosa as the new ADA... He probably would be willing if it could be worked out with CBS. And if Dick Wolf agreed not to make him shave this time!

Yeah as I mentioned at the start of the conversation I fully expect NBC to manage to screw this up since there isn't any announced A-list star already attached. So it will probably follow the usual pattern of announcement, casting, etc. followed by an announcement that is postponed, but still in active development when they can't agree on scripts, casting, etc. Because we all know that Dick Wolf and crew can't possibly handle that without NBC' "creative" executives' input. Although in this case it's probably for the best since I'm fine with the reruns of what we have. At this point I'd be more interested in seeing them follow through with one of the previously announced spinoffs or going in a different direction like a Trial By Jury revival on Peacock or a UK version of Criminal Intent.

Pretty simply actually. They mostly just ignore it, write the characters as everyone but Leight and Martin sees them and maybe toss in a line of non-specific dialogue here and there about some elements in the department think the DA is a political hack, sellout, corrupt, etc. because they can't get guilty verdicts from their crappy cases. They probably would also mention McCoy left and came back without specifying an exact time frame as it would allow a little bit more flexibility in story telling if they wanted to reopen a cold case. But maybe they will simply ignore SVU like SVU ignores the rest o the franchise bringing in characters when they want to and otherwise going their own way. I guarantee Rick Eid is not worried about hurting Warren Leight and company's feelings. And ditto for most of the other writers they might bring back. Do you think Rene Balcer or Michael Chernuchin would worry about going in a different direction?

Law & Order: NBC Revives Original Flagship Series, Orders Season 21 a Decade After Abrupt Cancellation ‘Law & Order’ Revived By NBC For Season 21 From Dick Wolf & Rick Eid I'll believe it when I see it and not until then given NBC's recent track record. They will probably find a way to screw this up by arguing about casting or controversial story lines. And Rick Eid's last run a a showrunner in the franchise is less than confidence boosting. But if it ever makes it to air I'll be watching.

I don't know. I would love to see him meet Stabler (I'm sure there will be a Meloni guest appearance) and ask LIv if he was the partner that held her back all those years... I'm sure Belzer is welcome back any time. His health issues have kept him from appearing as much as we (and Dick Wolf, NBC, etc.) would like. Florek is a good idea. Actually if you really wanted to celebrate the history of the franchise bring back Cragen, but have brought in because the victim is related to Mike Logan. Chris Noth doesn't seem to be too busy these days to do it. As long as they don't have fall in love with Benson or mindlessly toss in a line of dialogue that trashes the character and continuity it would be better than most episodes these days!

It actually makes sense from both an in-universe and meta standpoint. What we are seeing is not the entire unit, but those currently assigned to this particular operation. And given that it involves crooked cops it would make sense to keep it on a strictly need to know basis. From a story telling POV given that there are already a lot of new faces and a fairly large ensemble with their own plot lines that need to be serviced sticking to the strongest characters from the debut season and waiting to bring in anybody else is a smart move.

As a NY Giants fan I find this metaphor triggering. Although it's not quite the same thing since the Giants usually start doing better when the end of the game is in sight...

Yep. I enjoyed making jokes about Rollisi but I have less than zero interest in seeing it on screen. The chemistry is there, but it works best as some mix of UST and left to the imagination. And what's worse is that they seem to dragging Carisi down rather than using it to redeem Rollins. As I said in my comments on the episode having Carisi taking advice on ethics and how to manage his personal life from Rollins is just mind blowingly stupid. Has there been any announcement as to rather the new additions are series regulars? If they are simply recurring characters with fewer episodes that would also save money. I would actually hope the new chief is a recurring bit player like Carisi's evil boss and can be disposed of or left off screen. At least until the series finale where Liv is promoted to the job...

The Good: Kat and Fin, There was more chemistry there than any of the ships they were actually pushing. Of course all the characters work better when they're paired with Fin. Kat in general. It's a shame it took writing the character out for the writers to remember how much potential she had. Carisi as ADA. I would have liked to have seen him in court a lot more, but it was nice to see him actually being a prosecutor and in charge of the legal side. Rollins was mostly off to the side during the investigation so other than the scene with her talking about the right way to do things (really Rollins you think you're one to talk?) she was only ruining the Rollisi scenes and not the rest of the episode. Addition by subtraction. No more mask stupidity! They didn't go for the Noah/Rollinspawn in peril angle! The Bad: The shippy opening. I loved Rollins and Carisi as subtext and an organic product of the actors chemistry and the writers making Carisi an almost impossibly nice guy. And I also like Benson and Stabler together, but not like this. I liked the story more than most of you seem to, but there just didn't really seem to be enough there to need to be a 2-parter, Actually 3 including last season's finale. It was 5 pounds of crap in a 10 pound bag. The ending. Carisi taking ethics advice from Rollins? Kat leaving because she didn't see complete social change and solving sexual abuse in a year? The new boss practically dragging his knuckles on the way out of Liv's office? The whole OC promo flashback in therapy. The shippers know where to go and we don't need constant crossovers. You would do more to promote the new spinoff by giving them a decent lead in. Overall this was OK I guess. It could have been a really solid hour if they dropped the soapy romance nonsense and the unnecessary padding including the whole supervillian conspiracy stuff. Instead it was a mostly competent 2 hours that does nothing to get me excited for another season. Hopefully we will remember this as the bumpy start that was overcome rather than a harbinger of things to come.

I agree. Munch, while vocal, is considered a dilettante and is not taken seriously amongst the quirky community.

You very well could be correct. It seems like it was more than once, but that could just be because it was very memorable - it was a nice use of established continuity and characterization with Munch and Lennie having the same taste in women. And yes Rodgers could more than handle herself and did - if Munch ever seriously bothered her he never would have made it to retirement! The suggestion she was avoiding Munch was mostly a humorous way to explain what was surely a decision made for practical rather than story reasons. Just like my head canon that Logan started to microwave fish for lunch everyday which is why his partners kept leaving what was supposed to be one of the best assignments in NYPD...

I'm sure working with Goren had it's challenges, but I was talking about the personal stuff, not the professional. Goren wasn't constantly asking her out.

More likely it's the producers thinking it was too hard to schedule. Just about any actor would spread themselves thinner than the peanut butter in a prison lunch sandwich to play the role of a lifetime and get all those residual checks. In universe my personal canon is that she specially requested not to work SVU cases so she didn't have to put up with Munch any longer.

To be fair, Bill hasn't been to an awards show in years... Bill is upset at the idea that he would need to pay more to build a pipeline so he can have cheap water for his hydroponic set up. Plus he probably literally doesn't understand if you have 80-90% or more of the income/wealth and pay 50% of the taxes it's unfairly low. Because that would require doing some homework which would cut into his time smoking pot and doing his sold out stand up shows in middle America where I'm sure his income is filtered through various companies and tax shlelters.

I guess Warren Leight likes her and the character which is probably why she was on in the first place. It was pretty typical SVU continuity as regards the larger L&O universe - they brought in character because the showrunner had a good relationship with the actor and then pretty much ignored everything that happened off screen since the last time we saw them and didn't really bother with thinking about if everything what they did really matched up with what we've seen before. It was pretty good all things considered. And as far as not realizing the obvious that was actually respecting franchise continuity and tradition - only the characters in the opening credits can spot that a public servant is corrupt, criminal, etc. no matter how obvious!

Bingo. Just got around to watching this episode and was thinking about the Bill I used to actively enjoy watching even when I disagreed with him would have made just that point if this subject came up. Maybe talk about the playing of "God Bless America" by some teams and some of the other ridiculous performative patriotism of sports and argue that the problem isn't diversity it's that don't need another anthem we need to get rid of the one we already have at the games. That would be provocative and interesting and maybe generate some actual interesting discussion. You wouldn't even need to know anything about the song's history either!

I think it has been dialed back further, but it is still there. I think we need to remember and realize that Benson as our Lord and Savior with the rest of the squad as acolytes at best started in the second half of Season 17, was the entire focus of Season 18 and there has been a dialing back since then with a seeming tug of war between Mariska and the showrunners, both Leight and Chernuchin. I understand that most of those episodes are eminently forgettable, but we need to try to remember or we end up blaming writers and EPs for what is clearly a Dick Wolf/NBC decision and not appreciating their recognizing and attempting to fix the problems.

We've all been saying this since the beginning. I'm pretty sure that they were there since the network wanted some more experienced performers instead of just relying on their 2 (3?) stars and the young actors playing the students. They were featured more in the first season and then they've sort of been shoved in the background and the writers have never really figured out what to do with them.

The show realized it before that. IMHO the worst of the Benson warship was Season 18 which was essentially one long infomercial for Mariska's ideas and foundation. Just about every case (almost all of which had the same basic plot) was solved by Benson alone with the rest of the cast reduced to sidekicks. Remember Joe Biden stopping by? Or "Motherly Love"? directed by Mariska which had Benson shot and lit to look like a literal angel? Ever since then they have tried in various ways to dial it back it a bit.

Did you mean to type "a deep and instinctive empathetic understanding of victims' needs and experiences"?

She'd still find a way to escalate it into a hostage situation and a 10-13...

I'm 1000% sure it's budget related, but that doesn't change the end result. We will have the same problems as before of not enough characters compounded by no fresh blood in the main cast so we will end up with Carisi out on the street investigating even though he's a DA as we rehash the same storylines. And to make it worse this means we get LOTS of Rollins since Benson will have her OC cameos and they certainly can't match Car Shield's offer to give us more Fin. It's stupid and reflects short sightedness on NBC's part making a multi-year renewal with no plans to prevent this happening again and selfishness on the part of Dick Wolf and Mariska, either of whom could have given up a small part of their cut to keep the cast intact and the quality up. Not to mention that the easy solution is to write off Rollins who has like a million reasons to be out of there and would save enough to keep both of the newbies and probably a new recurring character as well...