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‘Saturday Night Live’ star Colin Jost selected as White House Correspondents Dinner headliner

It's not about not having room on the screen it's about not having room in the budget. They can do 4 and recurring characters to actually have a team or they can have 5 regular cast members who take episodes off with no one to fill in and we have Carisi randomly in the field or have even more Benson than usual with Velasco getting coffee and doing any running. Honestly if there is a Season 27 I would not be surprised to see Mariska, Ice-T and either Pisano, Scanavino, or Kane moved up with everyone else being recurring. He was the family of a special victim so he gets a free pass. Rules are rules after all...

That would have been how the episode ended during the original run. Maybe even after having McCoy negotiate some sort of deal with the US Attorney's Office and then revealing that they deliberately left a loophole in the deal and the testimony they elicited at trial opened him up to charges with longer time attached. I did like the legal side of the show better than most of the reboot, but it still was checkers vs. the chess of the OG run.

The Good: Fin. It's nice to see the writers remembering that he and Liv go way back and he is supposed to be her second in command and confidante. And having him as the voice of reason and pointing out that the plot is nonsense. Also the show is always better when he's actively involved in the investigation. The guest cast. They elevated a lot of overwrought overly familiar material to a watchable level. Bruno. It's a shame he can't be made a full fledged main cast member so Dick Wolf can buy a bigger yacht and Mariska can tell herself that the biggest paycheck means she is the best actress in television. Carisi. He should have had a bigger role early on, but he had some nice moments. And it's nice that they didn't crap on the DAs office with some nonsense about McGrath pulling strings with his bosses. McGrath seems to be being written out? Halle freaking lujah! The Bad: The opener. More wallowing in Benson's noble martyrdom and after all these years they still haven't learned to write a therapy session? Every time we think this interminable Maddie storyline can't go any lower Mariska is like "hold my tears"... Speaking of not knowing how to write what should be SVU 101, what terrible interviews. I mean any defense attorney worth their fee could point out the leading questions and how Benson was pushing a narrative from the jump. Why are we bringing in IAB other than some sort of misguided girl power storyline? Shouldn't Carisi have been her 1st call? Why wait for IAB to point out the obvious? If not Carisi then surely knowing what was going on 1PP should have been brought in? But I guess with the budget cuts they needed to find a reason to bring in another investigator since this was Velasco's week off? The ending. Everyone tells Benson again what a super special snowflake she is even when she is ruining their life. And then we are supposed to believe that SVU can bring in another captain or that a captain would voluntarily give up their rank to work for Benson? I like the actress and maybe she is old enough and different enough from Mariska for her not to feel threatened and sandbag her like all of the other new women brought in since KG? I guess this means Jasmine Batchelor has found other work and isn't going to hope that if she takes day rates for a couple more years she can be hired on FBI IT: Services Division? Overall this was another solid, if clliched COTW dragged down by the Maddie arc and Mariska's ego. It is probably the best of the season, and it's a shame that so much time was wasted on BS(Benson Stuff) as it could have easily been an actually good episode.

I'm not sure I'd fully agree. I think the best episodes of the revival are certainly of a comparable or better level of quality as Season 17... I think some of the problems with the writing are really issues with the budget and meddling network execs trying to "modernize" the show and keep the tone more consistent with the spinoffs. The interviews with stereotypical New Yorkers mean hiring many more actors in speaking roles and take time that is now used for commercials. Even some of the legal side is about trying to create cheap drama without any additional speaking roles to some extent. Although more of that is probably about the younger writers who were good at creating drama with tightly plotted dialogue are now being given their own shows on Netflix (until they are cancelled after 9 episodes) and about a feeling that sitting around the DA's office debating the issues is old fashioned and boring on the part of those aforementioned NBC executives and we need to have Drama with big moments that are created by having the lawyers being completely unprepared. Those commercials are so 90's/00's like the semi-comedic cold opens finding dead bodies instead of showing us the crimes and grabbing viewer interest with cleverly constructed investigations instead of low budget chase scenes and wannabe Perry Mason moments mid-trial...

The Good: The COTW. A solid investigation the proceeded step by step in old school SVU fashion (if a bit stripped down due to cast/budget cuts and the time needed for Benson's personal drama) with the squad acting as a team with the DA's office to investigate a sexually based offense. And it was nice to see the writers actually bothering to find an interesting angle that hadn't been done to death yet. Fin. It is always nice to see Ice_T getting some decent material and actually be motivated to do more than phone it in. The guest cast. In particular the victim and the call girl who did a nice job and avoided going OTT. The Bad: The opening. Clunky to the point of verging on self parody at times - especially Bruno the sensitive and understanding cop and nobody but Benson being able to exercise some judgement and discretion. Benson. Speaking of OTT bad acting... At least she was off to the side and we could ignore or FF most of her nonsense. The Maddie subplot continues. There is actually a good idea here for adding something new to a very tired formula without requiring any extra money or new cast. A case that doesn't go down right away or maybe even at all followed over the course of a season while other cases come and go would be interesting and add some realism and a new way of showing the emotional and psychological effect on the investigators. This is just yet another indulgence to Mariska's ego and telling us how incredibly special Benson is without ever actually showing us and is a drag on the show rather than a boost. Overall this was a solid episode. The non-Benson parts were a B+ and the Benson scenes were a D-. Probably a B-/C+, but at least it was an interesting disappointment and after the last two thudding mediocrities that's something.

I don't think anything's been announced one way or the other. They could still be setting up an arc, or they could be going more episodic and only doing Stabler's family as an arc given the shorter season and the fact that there are century old GM factories that haven't been retooled as much as this series. Speaking of Wheatley I am wondering if they are going with AI guy as a mole and if it was going to turn out he was somehow connected to Wheatley...

Nah - Law & Order SBU: Special Benson Unit. Market research indicates that 58% of viewers wouldn't even notice!

I guess in this anology "random mugging/robbery" is lupus?

The Good: Carisi. After being largely wasted last week he got some good stuff this week. Including being the only one in the courtroom scenes to actually understand what the job of the system was. The squad outside of Benson. They did not get enough time so we could focus on how the world revolves around Liv, but the little we got was pretty good. The ending. They did a pretty good job of polishing this turd, plus it meant that this slog was over. The perp and defense attorney. It's a shame that these good performances were wasted, but they made things more tolerable and I hope the actors get more work in better shows based on this. The Bad: Benson, Benson, Benson. It's like they vaguely remember some of the great episodes of the early years and are trying to recreate it, while forgetting that one of the things that made them great was that the acting, direction, and story made it clear that that the detectives were human and even sometimes WRONG. What we saw on screen was an overworked and traumatized investigator on the verge of a breakdown, but we were being told we are seeing a noble martyr. And a terrible leader as well- Cragen or Van Buren would have their officers create a perimeter and wait for the backup to arrest everyone instead of making speeches calling for nonviolence while watching their squadroom get trashed. The victim. The only way to make Benson look reasonable and wait is to create a portrait of White Liberal Guilt that Fox News would think was completey over the top and unrealistic. The Maddie storyline. It was bad enough last week, but worse that it was dragging down an episode that already had enough problems of it's own. Benson again. Special mention for the terrible acting and writing at the end when we were supposed to believe that her whispered words of wisdom saved the day. Let it be Liv, let it be. Overall this was a decent idea for the COTW bogged down by Benson worship and Mariska's ego and scenery gumming (she tried to chew the scenery, but couldn't pull it off). It was like a bad attempt at self parody. A B- idea with D- execution (and D- only because of great work by the main cast outside of Mariska along with the perp and his lawyer) and a subplot that was even worse. At least we know that the writers' room followed all of the strike rules. It's obvious nobody was doing any work or even thinking about plots and story during the hiatus!

If this tech CEO is a stand in for Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg I hereby withdraw my objection to showing us the crime instead of a cold open with the body being discovered. Please go full SVU with a 10 minute depiction of the crime set to music. And feel free to get very very graphic...

SVU pretty much has bipolar disorder locked up within the franchise...

This is an example of (probably unintended) realism with the police being uniquely vulnerable to fentanyl - https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/1175726650/fentanyl-police-overdose-misinformation

Yes they said Fordham previously. I am surprised their lawyers allowed it, because Fordham is a solid school and having Rollins teach there could be construed as defamatory towards their academic hiring standards... Hudson wouldn't have her. They may hire rapists, murderers, ethically challenged researchers, corporate cronies, and criminals and accomplices of all kinds, but they do require you to be an academically qualified monster unless you have an obscene amount of money. They might (just might) accept Rollins into their MA program or let her be a guest speaker, but they would never ever hire her as faculty. People put up with all of the crime because you are learning from the best minds in the world, not someone who wasn't even the best profiler on a 4 person squad...

I would actually bet the legal grief is pretty minor all things considered. I think we have to remember a couple of things - John is pretty self-deprecating, I don't think there would be any danger of cancellation if they didn't win - the show is a money maker, based upon everything we know about online monetization and the streaming viewership. I am sure he gets a lot of grief from various execs - for the programming types they have to deal with people in the industry they want to work with being offended by his jokes. The higher ups have to deal with grief from various investors and their rich asshole friends who are the ones making money from his featured stories more often than not. But the bottom line is the bottom line. As long as the show keeps making money Zaslov and company will keep it on the air. If it stops making money they will cancel it if wins the EGOT and makes all the crtics Best Of lists.

The mothership actually cares about reflecting reality to some degree and it is true that especially in urban areas CCTV is a huge part of investigations even compared to a decade ago as cameras have improved and storage has gotten cheaper and easier. Also the mothership uses it as a tool to save money on extras and location shooting - what the first run had discovered through canvassing is now found by reviewing the footage. On this series it's not a worry as they have filled the time that would have been spent on canvassing scenes with Benson monologues and have replaced the step by step investigations with her genius and magic whispering just uncovering the truth without any boring plot mechanics required. Again actually addressing it (even if is just a conversation about how everyone on her friends list and the parents of guests is squeaky clean and didn't have any file sharing malware that they could find) would take away time from showing us how much Benson cares about the victims. It's the kind of thing the show used to care about when it was about elite detectives investigating sexually based offenses instead of Benson's personal experiences.

The Good: I liked the little tribute to Munch in the opener. It was a rare moment of restraint and I am glad that they let Fin be the one to bring it up. The squad except for Benson. Everyone else got some quality material and contributed to the investigation. They found an interesting twist for the COTW - it takes some doing to find an angle that brings any sense of something different, and it's a shame they wasted it on this soapy sop to Mariska's ego. The out of town detective. I liked the character and the actress. It's a shame that said ego won't let any new younger actresses get any sort of focus for more than a few scenes. It was played like she is a potential new addition, but I hope it doesn't happen. I would rather they stick with the current rotating recurring characters and maybe bring in some non-Rollins specialists more often. The Bad: Benson. The overwhelming mediocrity of this episode starts and ends with her. Literally. We get. She Takes!It!Personally! and the weight of the world is on her shoulders. Every cop wants to be her and every man wants her. Did the writers really think that we forgot all of this during the strike? Or that the problem with the show was too MUCH subtlety? Rollins. Speaking of forgetting did they forget that we have spent years watching Rollins and know that she really doesn't have any special insight to offer Benson here. Of course based upon the Jack The Ripper lecture they also seem to have distressingly little knowledge of forensic psychology and current theories and research for people who do what they do for a living. I mean this is something that in the old days they would have knocked out of the park with Huang. Carisi. Not any fault of him or PS. Just that they never bothered to come with anything for him to do other than be Rollins' husband and sit there looking appropriately happy, stern, concerned, etc. Benson again. A separate and special entry for the narration. What made them think we needed Benson as the voice of God? And they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a decent framing device? A shrink. Or at the end show her at Munch's grave telling him the story? Overall this was a resounding thud of an opener. Not a complete train wreck, but yet another example of a good idea for a case done badly. Hopefully this is not actually an agenda setting season premiere, but a (somewhat) shiny object designed to distract Mariska and get her stans back watching and posting online (on other platforms of course. Not talking about the discerning, intelligent, and good looking fans here who are much to sharp to fall for such a thing!) while they try to build upon having developed a workable creative model for the new budgetary reality and maybe actually develop some momentum. I worry that after Chernuchin and Leight 2.0 that they have given up on the idea of adult supervision for Mariska and we are sliding back towards the nadir of Season 18.

I really wonder how anyone could be convicted for murdering the president of Hudson University? I mean I would think any defense attorney who was halfway competent could have come up with reasonable doubt by linking the MO to one of the 987 other recent violent crimes connected to the school recently? Or by showing how many people had stronger motives? Oh well - being President of Hudson is like being drummer for Spinal Tap. You know the risks when you accept the gig.

It's an honor to have you joining us Mr. Scollins!

Yep. Franchise extension is nothing new. Even spin offs of spin offs with increasingly peripheral characters has a long and distinguished history. Especially with sitcoms. If the spin off is good we tend to forget that it started as a cash grab and if it's bad we tend to forget it ever existed. After all for every Fraiser there is at least one Tortellis... And since this is the media thread here is a very relevant news story to this conversation reinforcing @shapeshifter's point. Chuck Lorre to Receive Inaugural Norman Lear Award at Variety Showrunners Dinner

Well said. There is a difference between the show being centered on a star, and the show building up the lead by shoving anyone else down. Criminal Intent vs. SVU. Heck even Organized Crime which was designed as a Meloni vehicle from the start and lacks any other reason to exist has done more to have an actual ensemble, with the shedding of characters and cast having more to do with a lack of sustained coherent vision and characters having natural endpoints to their story. They even kept the original male co-lead who took focus from the lead around loooong past the natural endpoint to his story...

Yep - it's one of those show business terms like "Executive Producer" or "actively developing" that can mean anything or nothing. And as far as those initial departures are concerned I think you are oversimplifying a bit. Dzundza hated everyone from Dick Wolf down to the craft services team...

I agree that the new episodes are lacking in the legal area, but I don't know if it's a lack of knowledge since I've noticed a fair number of OG writers and producers involved. My guess is that it's more about a dilution of the writing talent pool due to the rise of streaming, along with the budget and running time cuts increasing the difficulty of doing it well (i.e. being required to do in hallway exposition what would have been done in the courtroom with extras and guest cast previously).

I'm not too worried about it. It's PR after all and many of the characters have had backstories and dynamics that were either adjusted or ignored as necessary. I mean if they were doing the same sort of story about Lennie Briscoe back in the day you would have probably had the same reservations and that turned out not too bad. Now here I agree completely! As most of us have said if they wanted to shake things up a bit they should have gone with the legal side. Maybe have Maroun get killed and then a disillusoned Shaw goes to work for the DA's office while one of the more popular characters from one of the other series in the franchise transfers to the 2-7. I mean how could that sort of thing NOT work?

I agree and thought they did a great job - I am not an expert in the language or culture, but grew up in the Mohawk Valley and have been exposed to quite a bit both reading and in person and thought they did a much better job than usual as far as being accuarate and respectful. I was a bit confused about why the Europeans were conquistadors instead of English, Dutch, or French though. My guess is that they wanted to tie in the lake to the Fountain of Youth so in this universe the Spanish ventured much further north. Or perhaps there was a more practical motivation such as having more ready access to Spanish voice acting talent than Dutch, or being wary of depicting the actual historical conflict. Has anyone seen any explanation for this from the creative team?