Welcome To The Squadroom: Questions, Comments, And Other Miscellaneous Musings For Further Discussion

[Devonte Huntley]

6 hours ago, dttruman said:

I think they are already covered that with L&O: Criminal Intent.

And that show has been over and done with for ten years now and SVU has (for the most part) been the remaining and successful running L&O show since. It should have contained elements of all the others. Like when L&O started show-casing the last moments of the soon-to-be victims' lives in the last three seasons? Something CI had displayed mainly? That's what I'm talking about. Don't just always leave the cool stuff to one show, especially if that one ended so long ago. I don't expect them to do it ALL the time but it'd be nice to see it done frequently. Trial By Jury also had this sort of angle, and it made sense since the show needed to showcase the defense/criminal point of view too with the court proceedings and balance out both side's goal to win. 

Edited July 18, 2021 by Devonte Huntley

[dttruman]

18 hours ago, Devonte Huntley said:

And that show has been over and done with for ten years now and SVU has (for the most part) been the remaining and successful running L&O show since. It should have contained elements of all the others. Like when L&O started show-casing the last moments of the soon-to-be victims' lives in the last three seasons? Something CI had displayed mainly? That's what I'm talking about. Don't just always leave the cool stuff to one show, especially if that one ended so long ago. I don't expect them to do it ALL the time but it'd be nice to see it done frequently. Trial By Jury also had this sort of angle, and it made sense since the show needed to showcase the defense/criminal point of view too with the court proceedings and balance out both side's goal to win. 

I am sorry, but I thought that was a well put together show, even though they changed the main characters a few times it turned out to have a good run. Some of the other L&O serieses that showcase their special brand of drama, ended up getting cancelled. You probably won't see much of the CI aspect on a consistent basis in SVU, because that would take away face time and dialogue from Benson and Rollins. The only way it might work is if they probably drop Tamin and Fin.

[Xeliou66]

1 minute ago, dttruman said:

I am sorry, but I thought that was a well put together show, even though they changed the main characters a few times it turned out to have a good run. Some of the other L&O serieses that showcase their special brand of drama, ended up getting cancelled. You probably won't see much of the CI aspect on a consistent basis in SVU, because that would take away face time and dialogue from Benson and Rollins. The only way it might work is if they probably drop Tamin and Fin.

The original L&O was so successful because of the formula and the quality writing and interesting characters, it was stellar for all 20 seasons despite not one character staying on for all 20 seasons. SVU and CI were successful because of good cases and characters as well. Modern day SVU is so much weaker because of the over-focus on Benson and to a lesser extent Rollins and having too many soapy plots in general, SVU has always had more personal stuff than the Mothership but now they’ve had so many personal cases involving Benson/Noah and Rollins’ family that it’s just become cliched and tiresome. Current SVU should be called the Olivia and Amanda Hour. Carisi is frequently reduced to just serving Rollins interests and he rarely gets time in the spotlight, Fin is good but rarely gets any focus as well, and Kat was put on the show just to appease “woke” fans on social media clamoring for a character that represents their views IMO. And Garland is supposedly a main character but is only in half of the episodes.

I know everyone has different tastes, but I loved the original L&O because of its unique formula of being almost exclusively about the cases with minimal personal drama and relationships, yet they still had extremely compelling characters. SVU has simply gone overboard in recent seasons with soapy crap and over-focusing on 2 characters while neglecting others and crapping on the continuity and legacy of the franchise, and I’m afraid that the new season will be the last straw for me with them apparently putting Carisi/Rollins in a relationship, I’m still really pissed that they apparently gave Fin a relationship/personal story just so they could find a reason for Rollins and Carisi to hook up, I still have a really bad taste in my mouth about it all, and don’t be shocked if I stop watching regularly this season. Just my thoughts on some of this. 

[Devonte Huntley]

8 hours ago, dttruman said:

I am sorry, but I thought that was a well put together show, even though they changed the main characters a few times it turned out to have a good run. Some of the other L&O serieses that showcase their special brand of drama, ended up getting cancelled. You probably won't see much of the CI aspect on a consistent basis in SVU, because that would take away face time and dialogue from Benson and Rollins. The only way it might work is if they probably drop Tamin and Fin.

Law & Order had a good run, but it was a sloppy one. The show was always changing cast members and it's a shame no one stuck around the whole duration and most stayed on for 1-3 years tops. I'm surprised it even lasted as long as it did because most shows that under-go so many casting changes like this show has tend to be cancelled very quickly because you grow and appeal to these people and want them to stay on a while. Thank goodness for the likes of S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterson, Jerry Orbach, Jesse L. Martin, Steven Hill, who managed to stay on for a significant amount of time with Chris Noth, Elizabeth Rohm, and Fred Thompson who stayed significantly shorter, but longer than most of their comrades. More than four years is reasonable to me. 

People fail to realize what doesn't work about L&O is that these people still have LIVES outside of their jobs and we ought to see that explore some time, which is why SVU came in and offered that balance. To constantly keep these characters' personal lives in the dark just paints them as one dimensional and drains them of having any kind of life outside of their job and they don't come off real. In real-life, these people tend to have families and go through non-work situations that can affect their jobs. If we're never seeing that to the point where they can't even TALK about their lives or incidents outside of it, then that just makes the show seem corny because how can all these victims and suspects have these lives that the main characters can never seem to have? Why not just make them angels or something? You want to make them human, they ought to have displays of human lives besides their jobs or they just don't come off real to me.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Devonte Huntley

[WendyCR72]

Let's watch the tone, gang. This is not directed at any one individual. But things seem to be getting tense. So let's remember: Snark at the show and characters. Posters are off limits. Carry on.

[SVU Saturdays]

Watching S02.E11, "Abuse", and thinking how awesome it would be to do a new episode with this cast.  Hayden Panettiere come back as the girl all grown up and see what happened to her and her family.

[Devonte Huntley]

On 7/24/2021 at 2:51 PM, SVU Saturdays said:

Watching S02.E11, "Abuse", and thinking how awesome it would be to do a new episode with this cast.  Hayden Panettiere come back as the girl all grown up and see what happened to her and her family.

With the way people run these crime drama shows acting like they don't want to revisit old episodes 90% of the time, don't count on there ever being a continuation. It's sickening. If I was in charge of SVU, we'd be having revisit storylines and recurring characters right and left. All these episodes and characters and they want to keep shoving new ones at us all the time? Ridiculous. 

[Devonte Huntley]

Well, we're losing Kat and Garland next season. How odd we're losing BOTH at the same time in the same episode. With Kat's actor, there seems to have been money issues involved as she states her leaving was not her choosing (always the damn money issues), but I have no idea why Demore Barnes is leaving. The storyline they set up for him at the end of the last season finale seems to have me interesting on the arc he was to have this upcoming season, but it looks like he's going to lose this fight sooner than expected or even intended. 

Quite a shame. I swear if Warren Leight has anything to do with this, I'm going to disown this man I swear it! Might be a money cut thing with NBC which isn't surprising neither given what we had to deal with this past year. Who knows? We can never seem to get proper info in cases like this when cast members leave abruptly. It took forever for us to even finally know why Chris Meloni left the show and we were left in the dark about that for age. I figured this show would maintain it's current cast for the years to come. They all sort of clicked, even though it took a while for me to grow to Kat, and was still growing but she was the young face this show needed, and Garland, eh...I didn't think he REALLY needed to be a main character since how often can you have the chief involved so much in these stories. Having Olivia be front and center is a stretch given Cragen was never given much involvement. But the different is, Olivia was always sort of a lead character and became the lead for a bit when Chris left, and they're not gonna want to give her the back seat no matter what promotion she has as far as running of SVU is concerned. If she were to take Garland's position, she'd certainly have to take a back-seat. But now Mariska apparently has to take a back seat due to her getting injured so we won't be seeing Olivia in much action either. HMM.....

Oh boy, this season is going to be rough in it's beginning stages. So that leaves two cast members gone, one on bench that won't be a speedy recovering, so that leaves THREE we have to entertain us. The cast pool is just shrinking massively on us and is quite a shame for a show that's always had a big cast, even though we've had simply four main characters before in Season 1, but that was waaaaaay back when the show first started and still finding it's footing. I don't think fans are gonna settle for that at this level in the show's run, so we're gonna need some new blood in the squad room or even in the DA's office. Hell, what about the Medical Examiner? This is a good opportunity to bring back Tamara Tunie full time and implement more murder cases.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Devonte Huntley

[TVMovieBuff]

I don't mind losing Kat. As for Garland, the show always does recycle DA's so that is expected. 

The industry changes, and I don't think the multi-million $$ salaries of commercial TV stars will last too much longer. With the high quality of pay streaming services, and the Covid uncertainties. 

I am really happy with Olivia, Carisi and Rollins.

 

[WendyCR72]

This is a gentle reminder that, unless it has been cleared with myself or @txhorns79, all miscellaneous talk goes here. There is simply an overload of threads.

As such, a thread about Benson/Stabler has been locked/hidden. Please read the note atop the main page of the forum. If you think there is something of importance that needs a thread, PM either myself or @txhorns79 and we will make a determination.

Thanks for your cooperation.

 

[dttruman]

Considering with all the goings on in NYC up to now, I wonder if the producers and writers will come up with new episodes dealing with the failed policy of "Soft on Crime". Will there be some kind of conspiracy among the DAs to reduce charges on all suspected felons, even sex crime felons? If so, I hope they don't throw Carisi under the bus and make him one of them. I wouldn't mind it if Carisi was all for it, but was really undercover to find out what the conspiracy is all about.

[dttruman]

Well I guess we all know that at some point in time during season 24, there will be an episode about a 10 year old girl getting raped and will need to see a doctor about an abortion. I wonder how they will weave a story line around this?

[Xeliou66]

30 minutes ago, dttruman said:

Well I guess we all know that at some point in time during season 24, there will be an episode about a 10 year old girl getting raped and will need to see a doctor about an abortion. I wonder how they will weave a story line around this?

Yeah that case has an SVU “ripped from the headlines” storyline written all over it. They already did a similar storyline about in season 21 about the girl who was raped by her stepfather running away from Ohio to NYC to get an abortion, so I’m not sure how they will put a fresh twist on it - then again, the show frequently doesn’t have much freshness, after all how many stories about he said/she said rape cases involving rich well known white people have we seen over the last few years. 

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yeah that case has an SVU “ripped from the headlines” storyline written all over it. They already did a similar storyline about in season 21 about the girl who was raped by her stepfather running away from Ohio to NYC to get an abortion, so I’m not sure how they will put a fresh twist on it - then again, the show frequently doesn’t have much freshness, after all how many stories about he said/she said rape cases involving rich well known white people have we seen over the last few years. 

Yeah that episode was so politicized but it did throw out a couple of pretty good scenarios though. One of the wacky ones was where a would be politician from Ohio wanted the DA and the Governor of NY arrested with a couple of others because of their stand on abortion

[Xeliou66]

24 minutes ago, dttruman said:

Yeah that episode was so politicized but it did throw out a couple of pretty good scenarios though. One of the wacky ones was where a would be politician from Ohio wanted the DA and the Governor of NY arrested with a couple of others because of their stand on abortion

Yeah that was over the top - the scenario was interesting but the execution of the episode was lacking, something which sums up a lot of modern day SVU. 

[dttruman]

5 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

the episode was lacking, something which sums up a lot of modern day SVU. 

You nailed it! I can't remember, but was it too much Benson as it usually is?

[Xeliou66]

16 minutes ago, dttruman said:

You nailed it! I can't remember, but was it too much Benson as it usually is?

It was actually centered on Rollins as much as Benson, but St Olivia gave one of her speeches to the victim’s mother and got her to come around, as she always does.

Some people say SVU is out of ideas - I don’t agree, I think there are still plenty of good plots they can do, the ideas are there, the execution is what’s lacking, the writers spend too much time on soapy crap and Benson worship and not enough on fleshing out the cases. 

[dttruman]

9 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Some people say SVU is out of ideas - I don’t agree, I think there are still plenty of good plots they can do, the ideas are there, the execution is what’s lacking, the writers spend too much time on soapy crap and Benson worship and not enough on fleshing out the cases. 

Agreed! The episodes starts off with a a good beginning with the potential for a good and interesting investigation, but some how is made superficial or in fact goes in a totally different direction that may become a bias social or political message

[torqy]

Mrs. Torqy still watches, I gave up several years ago. It seems that EVERY cable channel has shown "Born Psychopath" the past two weeks. Sometimes multiple showings. Or did I just hallucinate this?

Edited August 31, 2022 by torqy

[WendyCR72]

If anyone misses Donal Logue, he will be appearing on The Equalizer. There is a question if his character will be a de facto replacement for Chris Noth's departed Bishop or not...

[dttruman]

Just saw a news report on TV that is about a rape of a LSU student. I thought it would be a great story for SVU, because it kind of writes itself. It has some elements from cases from way back, and I thought it would be an excellent episode if done right. Here is the video of of Youtube.

 

[Colorado David]

Sad to hear Richard Belzer, who played Det. Munch, has passed. I always loved his sarcastic wit and great delivery.      https://kutv.com/news/entertainment/richard-belzer-stand-up-comic-and-tv-detective-dies-at-78-02-19-2023-231114314

[SunnyBeBe]

Does anyone know the name of the episode that aired last night?  

[illdoc]

2 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Does anyone know the name of the episode that aired last night?

Season 24 Episode 4 The Steps We Cannot Take. Rerun. No new episodes until March 23

[Debra]

Dick Wolf finally took a wrong turn in the SVU world. Guess it was bound to happen. Maybe it’s time for him to retire?  NOT a fan of Muncie!!!!! 

Removing Amanda after so long was just a HUGE mistake.  Not only had she become as important as Liv, Fin and Caresi there was a sweet single mothers bond and friendship with her and Liv. This was nice to watch and see over the years. How they supported each other and leaned on each other is something we need to see more of on tv shows. Instead of the snarky, backstabbing women other women on so ma y tv shows.  Not to mention ending Caresi and Amanda in the happily ever after without even getting to see what their marriage would have been like after years of waiting. Or the missed opportunity for Caresi to adopt her little girls. Perhaps even having children together. The show dynamic is just NOT same! Disappointed to see it heading in this direction after 24 yrs.  But I guess it will make it easier when it get canceled. 
 

ps. The Olivia and Stabler storyline is awful. Stop trying to make them a couple. What made them work was friendship. She is too good for him and all his baggage.  Plus you are ruining his Catholic values and commitment to marriage and his overall values with the ridiculous stuff you are writing. So not a fan. If the ratings aren’t dropping yet it’s only because of loyalty to Liv, and Fin etc. It sure isn’t S24 storylines because they are bad. You had the potential with a relationship for Liv and the Gang unit Lieutenant(I can’t think of his name at the moment) but you killed him off as it was getting interesting.  
 

I hope you pull your head out of your A** before it’s too late. I already have several friends and family that have stopped watching. 
It’s just a shame for the longest running tv show in history to go down like this!

Love Olivia, Fin, Caresi, Barba(who would also make an awesome love interest for Liv) AND AMANDA!!!!! Get rid of Muncie and Bring Rollins back! Enough already!!!!!

 

Signed, I hope the writers, and creator their shit together before it’s too late!!!

DB

[WendyCR72]

I doubt Rollins will be back permanently because the likely reason Kelli Giddish was axed still exists:

The budget. Or lack thereof. Newbies are cheaper. They just are. And the show is 24 seasons in. Not much else can be trimmed or cut unless the stars agree to salary cuts, and I doubt that will happen.

So this is the result.

[StarBrand]

What are the small moments from SVU that stick with you long after watching them?

I just re-watched "Annihilated", where, after Stabler gets the father to admit his murdered his family, he silently walks out of the interrogation room, past Cragen, and fails to acknowledge Munch, Fin, or even Olivia at all, then walks into the elevator

Near the end of "Burned" where the dying ex-wife is heard screaming. I don't even want to imagine what pain like that feels like.

I forget which episode it was, but the one with the mentally challenged perpetrator who is sent to a mental instituion , and we are given a glimpse of what his life will now be like, in a place filled with crazy people-he just shakes his head and mumbles "no, no, no". It's a fate worse than prison, I'd think.

The scene in "Nocturne" where Munch shows Stabler the videotape of the abused student abusing a younger one. Munch is in the background and can barely watch it. The camera closes in on Stabler's face, and starts to contort at what he's watching. Tells you everything you need to know.

Edited January 8 by StarBrand

[jcbrown]

Not sure it was as memorable as it meant to be because I cannot tell you the characters that were involved but there is an episode about child abuse and I swear there is a scene with Munch and Stabler (?) talking at the bar about a nextdoor neighbor kid that was abused and who he used to try to look out for but could not in the anecdote he is recounting. I could be totally wrong about who is in the scene? But the acting was really good. I think it is the episode with the woman who shook her kid to death and was charged with murder after life support was withdrawn.

[Xeliou66]

16 minutes ago, jcbrown said:

Not sure it was as memorable as it meant to be because I cannot tell you the characters that were involved but there is an episode about child abuse and I swear there is a scene with Munch and Stabler (?) talking at the bar about a nextdoor neighbor kid that was abused and who he used to try to look out for but could not in the anecdote he is recounting. I could be totally wrong about who is in the scene? But the acting was really good. I think it is the episode with the woman who shook her kid to death and was charged with murder after life support was withdrawn.

You are mixing two episodes together - the season 2 episode Legacy and the season 5 episode Shaken - in Legacy, it was Munch telling Benson the story from his childhood about the neighbor kid, and they were on the rooftop of the station. In Shaken, Stabler tells Cragen about the time he got angry at his infant daughter and slapped her after she spilled juice and stopped himself before he got angrier and tearfully told Cragen that he hurt his kid over a lousy carpet. Both scenes were well acted, powerful and sad scenes. 

[jcbrown]

Thank you and yes, of course!

[WendyCR72]

I am locking this thread. It has been asked via the note atop the main forum page to ask before creating new threads as there are so many. This discussion can take place in this thread.

Again, please PM myself or @txhorns79 to request a thread [which will not fit in any existing topic] before any new thread is created.

Thank you.

[predxeno]

Hello, I need help looking a specific episode in the series. The episode was about Olivia and Elliott investigating child abuse and a little girl gave Olivia a gift which turned out to be important evidence. Olivia and Elliot later mention that abused children can be too giving as a result of their trauma. I would like to re-locate this episode for a story I'm writing on the subject and would appreciate whatever help I can get finding it. Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

[Xeliou66]

A few episodes have mentioned that - there’s Resilience from season 4 where the child being raised by the sicko killer parents displayed odd behavior with Stabler which included giving a gift I believe that tipped them off, and there’s Abuse from season 2 where the neglected little girl of celebrity parents becomes attached to Olivia. There are probably a few more, and I know it’s been mentioned multiple times that abused children can sometimes be overly giving and affectionate. 

[MarylandGirl]

Resilience is what came to mind for me. I think the young girl gave Stabler a piece of jewelry that belonged to the victim? But I think there were others, too.

[Xeliou66]

16 minutes ago, MarylandGirl said:

Resilience is what came to mind for me. I think the young girl gave Stabler a piece of jewelry that belonged to the victim? But I think there were others, too.

Yes I think that’s what happened in that episode. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that episode, but it’s a great episode. I really miss when SVU had twisted cases like that with the whole squad working on them, now it’s almost always St Olivia taking it personally and saving the day while helping a young pretty white woman who’s been assaulted by a powerful man usually. It’s amazing how far downhill SVU has gone. 

[Amazee-Dayzee]

Which episode was that? I know that I have seen it and it was about a victim being stuffed into a bad and carried out and dumped somewhere but I am not sure what the episode was.