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Law & Order: SVU in the Media


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On 5/4/2022 at 12:56 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I have mixed feelings about Warren leaving - the positive thing about Warren is that he gave us a greater variety of cases and storylines I feel like, not just upper class white people in he said/she said rape cases. On the other hand, Warren absolutely loves soapy drama, so he threw in a ton of Rollins family drama as Rollins is his pet character as well, and of course St Olivia/Noah crap. And also he has a strange hard on for trashing the DA’s office, which has notably stopped since the Mothership’s return, hopefully the new showrunner will abandon all mention of “the 8th floor” for good. Hopefully a new show runner will give fresh life to the show and remove some of the negative elements, but I’m afraid the true showrunner is Mariska, and she’ll continue to demand the Benson worship and Benson centric storylines placed front and center.

No mixed feelings here unless they announce Balcer is going to come in. Leight has been the only one who has been able to effectively manage Mariska's ego for longer than a few episodes. While I preferred Chernuchin's vision to Leight 2.0 he simply didn't have the same pull. Both were superior to Eid who couldn't provide any counterbalance. My fear is that they will promote Julie Martin who seems to have no interest in a vision other than Mariska's.

On 5/4/2022 at 7:48 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I think she’s been the de facto showrunner since about season 15. She won’t be the official showrunner/head writer, but we all know she has more influence than anyone over the show, and that’s why we get so much Benson worship and Benson shoved down our throats constantly. 

Yeah stars don't showrun network series. That's only for miniseries and streaming where you can do 11 episode seasons 2 years apart. And while she's been the dominant creative influence for half a decade I think there is a difference between that and defacto showrunner. She was during Season 18 and I think NBC and Dick Wolf learned you need someone else in charge of the storytelling. Without Hargitay there is no show. Without someone else there is also no show before too long.

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2 hours ago, wknt3 said:

No mixed feelings here unless they announce Balcer is going to come in. Leight has been the only one who has been able to effectively manage Mariska's ego for longer than a few episodes. While I preferred Chernuchin's vision to Leight 2.0 he simply didn't have the same pull. Both were superior to Eid who couldn't provide any counterbalance. My fear is that they will promote Julie Martin who seems to have no interest in a vision other than Mariska's.

 

2 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Yeah stars don't showrun network series. That's only for miniseries and streaming where you can do 11 episode seasons 2 years apart. And while she's been the dominant creative influence for half a decade I think there is a difference between that and defacto showrunner. She was during Season 18 and I think NBC and Dick Wolf learned you need someone else in charge of the storytelling. Without Hargitay there is no show. Without someone else there is also no show before too long.

Very keen insight to those that have watched SVU over the years and were still deciding what kind of character Benson was or what kind of character Hargitay wanted to make of her.

OK, we all need to go to London. Our favorite M.E., Tamara Tunie, is playing Kamala Harris in a play opening al the Old Vic. “The 47th” is a Shakespearean look at what would happen if Trump ran in 2024. The playwright, Mike Bartlett, is best known for a similar take on the royal family, “King Charles III.”

www.oldvictheatre.com

 

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On 5/6/2022 at 8:14 AM, wknt3 said:

Yeah stars don't showrun network series. That's only for miniseries and streaming where you can do 11 episode seasons 2 years apart. And while she's been the dominant creative influence for half a decade I think there is a difference between that and defacto showrunner. She was during Season 18 and I think NBC and Dick Wolf learned you need someone else in charge of the storytelling. Without Hargitay there is no show. Without someone else there is also no show before too long.

How much pull did these stars have when their TV shows were pretty popular and they were listed as "Executive Producers" in the credits in the beginning? I can remember Dick Van Dyke and Andy Griffith being EP's of their shows from the past. Mark Harmon is a prominent one today.

44 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

It wasn't me. but haven't we been saying this for the past 5 to 6 years at least. When it comes to plots of episodes most of us would say that they start out with very interesting story lines, but they almost always seem to drop the ball and add to many soap opera moments or the story lines might change a little just to accommodate their particular agendas at the time.

What kind of disappoints me is the reporter here, got a lot her information from Reddit. It's too bad she never check out our discussion time here concerning SVU.

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48 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

That piece was pretty spot on with some of the stuff that’s wrong with SVU - there are too many episodes that reveal exactly what happened from the beginning taking all of the suspense away, the handling of social issues/“ripped from the headlines” stuff is usually clunky and cliched, and there’s way too much focus on personal stuff, particularly Benson/Noah. I would also add that the way Benson is portrayed as an all knowing beacon of light who’s never wrong really detracts from the show. But yeah, there’s not enough detective/legal stuff and too much personal soap opera and clunky political dialogue. I’m still unsure of whether I will even bother to watch season 24, now that the Mothership is back, we actually have a quality show to watch and not the soapy shitfest that is modern day SVU.

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7 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Sadly, I did not. But I wish I did. The article is so on the nose, it's painful. As with the rest of the franchise, I did not always feel so much antipathy for this show. I watched - and enjoyed - them all, from the Mothership 1.0 to earlier SVU to Criminal Intent and even the one-season wonders.

But watching those old episodes from various franchise shows, including early SVU versus SVU now - and even the sort-of shallowness of the Mothership 2.0 - this franchise has definitely seen better days and better episodes.

I joke a lot, but I really do wonder if the SVU car is just out of gas and viewers - even fans, as the article points out - are just tired.

Everything has its day, and everything comes to an end.

And I wonder if it is time for SVU to give Olivia Benson her gold watch already. (Even if Dick Wolf stubbornly refuses to recognize such, which is a big problem.)

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6 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

I joke a lot, but I really do wonder if the SVU car is just out of gas and viewers - even fans, as the article points out - are just tired.

Everything has its day, and everything comes to an end.

And I wonder if it is time for SVU to give Olivia Benson her gold watch already. (Even if Dick Wolf stubbornly refuses to recognize such, which is a big problem.)

I wonder if something could be done, but I have a feeling the executive producers or those buying syndication rights would never go along with it. Return to limiting commercials to about 13 -15 minutes for the hour. Someone (very observant*) mentioned that time set aside for commercials has increased significantly over the years. Maybe this would give them time to actually put out something of quality instead of just trying to put out something superficial that just spotlights one person and a certain agenda

* I don't think if it was in this discussion about the media or if it was during discussion of a specific episode, but that person needs to be congratulated for that very specific fact. It sure puts more pressure on the writers and producers to make a good episode.

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On 5/26/2022 at 3:22 AM, WendyCR72 said:

I joke a lot, but I really do wonder if the SVU car is just out of gas and viewers - even fans, as the article points out - are just tired.

Everything has its day, and everything comes to an end.

And I wonder if it is time for SVU to give Olivia Benson her gold watch already. (Even if Dick Wolf stubbornly refuses to recognize such, which is a big problem.)


SVU is definitely out of gas creatively. I have said before here many times that the best thing for the show would be for NBC to just make the decision and say a year ahead of time that they are ending the season and passing the torch. The other shows managed to work their way out of ruts by shaking things up cast wise, but for various reasons that's not really an option here. And given the economic constraints they can't really find a new angle with a new regular character as they have in the past. They could always freshen things up by going the Jack McCoy route and letting Benson actually grow and change and be the boss while showing us the parts of the job they only told us about when the CO wasn't the star of the show, but it seems like the star and her most vocal fans won't allow that,

Unfortunately as much as I might want them to give the series a proper sendoff and find their cojones and move on the much better show they have in the wings (Hate Crimes) it simply won't happen until Mariska finally throws in the towel or the ratings collapse. Why? Well since this is the media thread, because of articles like this.

‘Young Sheldon,’ ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Tie To Rule Thursday

While the direction (or lack thereof) of the show has been slowly driving viewers away it is still attracting enough females in the demo to win or tie it's night or time slot. And in the current state of network television that is enough. Because who cares about creative bankruptcy if it still financially profitable?

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18 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

Well, I'm not really familiar with him, but hey. Might be a good thing!

11 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

I hope for the best with this new showrunner but I really have no idea what to expect. I am expecting the worst in season 24 after that awful finale but maybe a new showrunner will patch things up and improve the show.

I don't know what to expect from the new showrunner and it's not important for what he brings to SVU. What is most important is if Hargitay and David Graziano can get along. Will things be looked at more objectively and what direction will the show take,

Just by looking at "Coyote", it looks like Graziano deals more with personal relationships in that series, instead of the procedural investigation (and sometimes trial) format of SVU.

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On 6/1/2022 at 8:39 PM, dttruman said:

I don't know what to expect from the new showrunner and it's not important for what he brings to SVU. What is most important is if Hargitay and David Graziano can get along. Will things be looked at more objectively and what direction will the show take,

Just by looking at "Coyote", it looks like Graziano deals more with personal relationships in that series, instead of the procedural investigation (and sometimes trial) format of SVU.

On 6/1/2022 at 10:43 PM, WendyCR72 said:

Oh, gawd. There goes my positivity.

On the bright side though they didn't promote Julie Martin. So at least there's some hope...

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3 hours ago, Kemper said:

It is time for Olivia to step into the Captain role; directing things from the office. She could still be the main player. Hire some seasoned detectives to do the arrests and legwork. That should keep the longtime, rabid viewers happy while giving the show some new, much needed life.

It's been long past the time to do this.  Hopefully the new showrunner will change the status quo, but hope seems to spring eternal for this show.

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15 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

It's been long past the time to do this.  Hopefully the new showrunner will change the status quo, but hope seems to spring eternal for this show.

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall when the Executive producers sit down and discuss what direction the main characters will take next season. Then after figuring all that out, some of them will sit down with the writers to consider what scenarios they can up with for the necessary number of episodes.

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50 minutes ago, CrystalBlue said:

OC is actually pretty good.  It's not all Benson Photobombing and EO Shipping.  😄

I enjoyed OC alright last season when it wasn’t focused on the Wheatley storyline. However I’m not sure how many more storylines they can do, it would be ridiculous to have Stabler go undercover again.

Anyway, as I posted on the Mothership thread, I’m not happy about a 3 way crossover, I don’t think it can be pulled off very successfully, given that OC never wraps stuff up in one episode, and SVU just isn’t very good anymore, and both SVU and OC have a lot of personal drama, while the Mothership has none. I am fine with minor crossover cameos, like Benson appearing on the Mothership’s season finale, but having a major crossover storyline will not be pulled off well IMO, and I really don’t want to see Mothership characters dragged into the personal bullshit of SVU and OC characters. 

Edited by Xeliou66
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22 minutes ago, Pearson80 said:

After everything that we have had to endure with Saint Olivia, I will take Stabler over her everyday of the week and twice on Sundays. I just can't with her..

Agreed - this is in large part due to the fact that the writers don't make Stabler perfect or all knowing, he has flaws but is overall good, whereas St Olivia is portrayed as an all knowing beacon of light who's never wrong and everyone around her constantly sings her praises. The writers don't hero worship Stabler the way they do St Olivia, Olivia has come to drive me completely bonkers over the last few years. I am by no means a huge fan of Stabler but I would prefer to watch him than St Benson every day of the week. 

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On 7/6/2022 at 6:11 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I enjoyed OC alright last season when it wasn’t focused on the Wheatley storyline. However I’m not sure how many more storylines they can do, it would be ridiculous to have Stabler go undercover again.


I think there a lot of possible directions they could go and they have shown signs of competence and being willing to do different things when they make sense. I would love to see Stabler as the lead investigator working with a new UC (now that they have written off some of the higher priced actors they could bring in someone known) and actually trying to build a case that can stand up in court (bring in some stage vets to play the new crime boss and ADA) with the stories being about Stabler being forced to watch and worry about someone else for a change and having to not charge in and bust someone while the investigation is ongoing. I'd watch that especially if the big crossover is OC telling Benson that no she cannot arrest someone on a charge that will not get a conviction (and actually winning because it is their show!) and it would be interesting seeing them trying a new angle every couple of seasons,

Edited by wknt3
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1 minute ago, WendyCR72 said:

New detective alert! And the actress was on a soap prior. So she will fit right in. (Familiar with her through the soap. She's okay. And hey, Kelli Giddish started on soaps, too...)

Interesting. Will she be replacing anyone, or is she just going to be a recurring character along the lines of someone like Khaldun? Either way, I’m glad they’ll have another detective to work with, the squad room has been beyond short handed lately.

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18 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

New detective alert! And the actress was on a soap (Days of Our Lives) prior. So she will fit right in. (Familiar with her through the soap. She's okay. And hey, Kelli Giddish started on soaps, too, on All My Children...)

Right now, it is recurring.

18 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Interesting. Will she be replacing anyone, or is she just going to be a recurring character along the lines of someone like Khaldun? Either way, I’m glad they’ll have another detective to work with, the squad room has been beyond short handed lately.


Hopefully it will mean that when Ice-T or Kelli Giddish (or even Peter Scanavino) have the week off that they will use her to fill the gap instead of giving us more Benson. I'm guessing that whatever option/holding deals they had with the Hate Crimes cast have expired and they still want to leave Benson free to drag down Organized Crime instead of spending all her time dragging down SVU. Fair enough. If it means they are submarining Velasco the way they have their last new cast members I'm going to be pissed...

Edited by wknt3
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2 minutes ago, wknt3 said:


Hopefully it will mean that when Ice-T or Kelli Giddish (or even Peter Scanavino) have the week off that they will use her to fill the gap instead of giving us more Benson. I'm guessing that whatever option/holding deals they had with the Hate Crimes cast have expired and they still want to leave Benson free to drag down Organized Crime instead of spending all her time dragging down SVU, Fair enough. If it means they are submarining Velasco they way have their last new cast members I'm going to be pissed,..

Yeah hopefully she will be another character that can fill in when Fin/Rollins/Velasco have the week off, it’s ridiculous how all 5 main characters are rarely in the same episode, and only Benson is in every episode. So yeah I hope this character is a good addition, I’m just glad there will be another detective around because the squad has been so goddamned short handed the past few seasons. 

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59 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yeah hopefully she will be another character that can fill in when Fin/Rollins/Velasco have the week off, it’s ridiculous how all 5 main characters are rarely in the same episode, and only Benson is in every episode. So yeah I hope this character is a good addition, I’m just glad there will be another detective around because the squad has been so goddamned short handed the past few seasons. 

I have a feeling we will be seeing "History repeat itself", where Benson criticizes and lecture the new detective, like she did to Tamin. Remember when Benson would tongue lash Tamin for prejudging suspects without solid evidence, even though she tends to do that many time herself. Or will it be Rollins who gets to be the hypocrite, this time around?

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1 hour ago, anna0852 said:

This sounds promising. The Chicago shows did something similar two years ago which turned out really well. 

https://tvline.com/2022/08/24/law-and-order-crossover-spoilers-svu-organized-crime-trailer-photo-nbc/

I’m very curious as to how well they will pull this crossover off - the storyline sounds interesting and I look forward to seeing how they work all 3 squads and all of the characters into the story - I just hope the storyline isn’t dominated by St Olivia and her crap and that the SVU stuff doesn’t veer into soapy melodrama as SVU too often does. I’m curious as to how all of the characters will work together.

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4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’m very curious as to how well they will pull this crossover off - the storyline sounds interesting and I look forward to seeing how they work all 3 squads and all of the characters into the story - I just hope the storyline isn’t dominated by St Olivia and her crap and that the SVU stuff doesn’t veer into soapy melodrama as SVU too often does. I’m curious as to how all of the characters will work together.

Always thought L&O did a really good job on that 3-parter, where there was a murder in NY, and they had to travel to L.A. to investigate and bring back the accused to NY to stand trial. Some movie executive was murdered and had her head chopped off. They even referenced stuff from the O.J. trial. I hope they can do as good a job on this one as they did on that one.

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3 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

Wow. Kelli Giddish is gone.

Never liked Rollins, so...bye! But I do wish Kelli success elsewhere.

The budget must have been slashed MAJORLY. Guessing between Ice T and Mariska Hargitay's salaries, it is now down to newbies or recurring folks. (Less money.)

Considering the pay, I thought Ice-T was getting top seniority pay for his participation even though I thought it was part-time work, since he had a few other projects. Are they planning on giving Ice-T more meatier parts in the episodes? Will Benson be mentoring the new girl and Fin working with Velasco? Will Garland be popping up again, hopefully a few times this season?

43 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

Wow. Kelli Giddish is gone.

Never liked Rollins, so...bye! But I do wish Kelli success elsewhere.

The budget must have been slashed MAJORLY. Guessing between Ice T and Mariska Hargitay's salaries, it is now down to newbies or recurring folks. (Less money.)

I kind of thought Ice-T was more or less part-time because he wasn't in many episodes and when he was, it wasn't that full-time amount like Benson. He had a few other projects, but he probably gave SVU priority up to a point. That's why I thought he wasn't a major concern in the budget.

15 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Wow. Kelli Giddish is gone.

Never liked Rollins, so...bye! But I do wish Kelli success elsewhere.

The budget must have been slashed MAJORLY. Guessing between Ice T and Mariska Hargitay's salaries, it is now down to newbies or recurring folks. (Less money.)


Wow is right. I would say this is addition by subrtraction, but I am afraid this means even more Benson and more empty episodes with random filler characters because they don't want to pay for any regulars.

Law & Order: SVU Shocker: Kelli Giddish Out as Rollins After 12 Seasons

Law & Order: SVU's Kelli Giddish Is Turning in Her Badge After 12 Seasons as Rollins

And not a shocker, but you would appear to be correct about the reasons for the change as well -

‘Law & Order: SVU’ Showrunner Responds To Complaints About Kelli Giddish Exit: “Things Are More Complex Than They Appear”
 

Quote

“You might take a moment to entertain the idea that things are more complex than they appear in a world of emojis and tweets,” he wrote on Giddish’s IG page. “All I’ll say is Kelli has handled this with the most incredibly classy comportment. She is, without a doubt, one of the finest industry professionals I’ve come across in my 24 years of writing for television. I’m saddened by her looming exit. It’ll be my lucky day if I ever get to write for her again.”


I would guess that there were some sort of negotiations going on and the reason for bringing on someone new was to have a plan B if things couldn't be worked out.
 

14 hours ago, dttruman said:

I kind of thought Ice-T was more or less part-time because he wasn't in many episodes and when he was, it wasn't that full-time amount like Benson. He had a few other projects, but he probably gave SVU priority up to a point. That's why I thought he wasn't a major concern in the budget.


From what we can surmise (as none of us actually knows anyrhing) Ice-T probably does make more than anyone but Mariska. The reason he is still there is because he has made a deal where he is making the same amount of money he was 12 years ago, but working less and less each year so he can spend more time on  all of his other projects. He can be both surprisingly affordable and a major concern in the budget if the budget is as small as it appears to be. Of course the biggest problem is not Ice-T, but the fact that Dick Wolf, NBC, and Mariska (in that order) cannot seem to make any sort of short term financial sacrifice for quality and long term gains.

Edited by wknt3
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The news about Kelli makes me feel like it’s time to just pull the plug on the show. I watched it out of habit a lot in S23 and was excited to see Elliot in S22 but EO is just dragging on at this point. I do ship them but I wish either something would happen already or they’d drop it and stay friends. (The letter plot ended up being a total waste of air.)

These days I would rather watch reruns with a more well-rounded main cast and solid guest stars. And @Fellaway don’t worry! I will never watch OC either. 

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I guess I’m the only one who’s happy about Rollins going bye-bye. Rollins is my all time least favorite main character on SVU - she’s been nothing but an unethical train-wreck since day 1, and her personal soapy drama has been some of the worst in the show’s history, she should’ve been fired many times for her unprofessional behavior, and the writing for her has been uneven - her and Benson were at odds for a while, then suddenly they became BFF’s overnight, and I hate the Rollins/Carisi pairing. I’m guessing Rollins will just choose to leave SVU in order to spend more time with her kids, and I’m guessing her and Carisi’s relationship will remain the same with Carisi occasionally mentioning her, because the “shippers” would go apeshit otherwise and we all know the writers pander to them, but I’m very happy Rollins and her endless soapy crap will be offscreen.

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7 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

These days I would rather watch reruns with a more well-rounded main cast and solid guest stars. And @Fellaway don’t worry! I will never watch OC either. 

Yes, I get more satisfaction watching the reruns because, they have "a more well-rounded main cast and solid guest stars" and the writing was a lot better also in the first 1-15 seasons, but it has dwindled down in the later seasons.

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23 minutes ago, dttruman said:

Yes, I get more satisfaction watching the reruns because, they have "a more well-rounded main cast and solid guest stars" and the writing was a lot better also in the first 1-15 seasons, but it has dwindled down in the later seasons.

The writing has been declining a lot longer than that! It's just that they used to have the budget to be bad in an entertaining way when the scripts sucked.  Lest we forget -
 

images.squarespace-cdn.gif

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9 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I guess I’m the only one who’s happy about Rollins going bye-bye. Rollins is my all time least favorite main character on SVU - she’s been nothing but an unethical train-wreck since day 1, and her personal soapy drama has been some of the worst in the show’s history, she should’ve been fired many times for her unprofessional behavior, and the writing for her has been uneven - her and Benson were at odds for a while, then suddenly they became BFF’s overnight, and I hate the Rollins/Carisi pairing. I’m guessing Rollins will just choose to leave SVU in order to spend more time with her kids, and I’m guessing her and Carisi’s relationship will remain the same with Carisi occasionally mentioning her, because the “shippers” would go apeshit otherwise and we all know the writers pander to them, but I’m very happy Rollins and her endless soapy crap will be offscreen.

Haha…I am a “shipper” I guess you could say and have been writing fanfic for a little over a year now in a few fandoms. There are some shippers who are reasonable and nice to talk to, but there are some who seem to center their identity around fictional romantic couples and can be the absolute worst. There’s really no in between. And yes they want to be pandered to all the time. 

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