Season 19 Spoilers & Speculation

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Let's face it, the "boss" is still playing detective even as she should largely be a paper pusher with a promotion to lieutenant. Apparently, reality took a long vacation from the L&O franchise long ago, never to return.

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing, but early SVU and later SVU just seem like two different shows. I think Wolf has softened over time since he seems to have embraced soap while he seemed to snub it early in the franchise.

With the show going 19 seasons in, I think "adequate" is as good as this show will get now.

Do you think Wolf is using his "Chicago" shows as leverage to pressure NBC to keep renewing SVU, even though the quality has gone down? Reducing the cast, using fewer locations, and coming up with nonsensical plots that have no logical resolutions  in order to cut the budget isn't helping.

[wknt3]

6 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing, but early SVU and later SVU just seem like two different shows. I think Wolf has softened over time since he seems to have embraced soap while he seemed to snub it early in the franchise.

I've said it before, but SVU is at least 3 different shows, probably 4 by now. The gritty procedural of the early years, the campy monkey in a basketball era, the grimdark nighttime soap Amaro years, and wherever we are now which seems to be trying to go back to the beginning while keeping some of the soap elements as far as Benson is concerned. And Wolf has always been willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the show on the air so it's not surprising to me that he's willing to embrace whatever the network suits want.

Quote

With the show going 19 seasons in, I think "adequate" is as good as this show will get now.

Maybe. I'm still cautiously optimistic. I thought the first half of Season 17 was more than merely adequate and they certainly have an EP and a cast than can deliver good or even great television if the decision makers are willing to make a few key changes. Hopefully this past season was L&O Season 17 or CI Season 8 and this will be their bounce back before the finale.

[WendyCR72]

6 hours ago, dttruman said:

Do you think Wolf is using his "Chicago" shows as leverage to pressure NBC to keep renewing SVU, even though the quality has gone down? Reducing the cast, using fewer locations, and coming up with nonsensical plots that have no logical resolutions  in order to cut the budget isn't helping.

I don't think so, because the Chicago franchise has no leverage, at least financially. Chicago PD and Chicago Fire are going into Seasons 5 and 6, respectively, and still have not been sold into syndication. The L&O franchise - I believe - had deals after 4 or 5 seasons under the belt of any of its shows. Deadline said when Chicago Fire was offered up, the asking price was as low as $350,000 per episode and it was shelved. It's probably why, even though it got comparable ratings, that Chicago Justice got the axe: There was no syndication money to make up the slack for four Chicago franchise shows, so maybe last greenlighted, first axed.

[sockii]

On 8/13/2017 at 2:58 PM, WendyCR72 said:

I don't think so, because the Chicago franchise has no leverage, at least financially. Chicago PD and Chicago Fire are going into Seasons 5 and 6, respectively, and still have not been sold into syndication. The L&O franchise - I believe - had deals after 4 or 5 seasons under the belt of any of its shows. Deadline said when Chicago Fire was offered up, the asking price was as low as $350,000 per episode and it was shelved. It's probably why, even though it got comparable ratings, that Chicago Justice got the axe: There was no syndication money to make up the slack for four Chicago franchise shows, so maybe last greenlighted, first axed.

Is there much of any real market for syndication rights these days? I have to wonder, when so many streaming services are out there offering up full runs of shows on demand (and not cut/edited for syndication runs, or full of endless/repetitive commercials, etc.) It kind of feels like that whole market is dying, with networks like USA, Ion, etc. just running the same older programs they already bought into the ground...

[WendyCR72]

3 hours ago, sockii said:

Is there much of any real market for syndication rights these days? I have to wonder, when so many streaming services are out there offering up full runs of shows on demand (and not cut/edited for syndication runs, or full of endless/repetitive commercials, etc.) It kind of feels like that whole market is dying, with networks like USA, Ion, etc. just running the same older programs they already bought into the ground...

Per that same Deadline article I referenced, money that used to go towards shows now goes for theatrical films and such. Honestly, I think it is as you said: Streaming services have also changed syndication.

With that said, if that's so, the fact that any of the Chicago shows have not been picked up by any of these services does not help them financially.

[JyDanzig]

The Chicago shows are not streamable anywhere?  Really?  That seems crazy!  I never realized that before, since I find that whole franchise... umm... I'm gonna go with "shockingly terrible."

Hey, I think I found one thing worthy of praise about the last season of SVU: no awful Chicago crossovers!

[Raja]

While serialized soap might win awards and get first run ratings when a minor network is showing four episodes and hoping you watch one it makes the old crime of the week show much better for syndication. I wouldn't be surprised if later SVU years get treated like the Stone years of the mothership and get withdrawn from some packages 

[WendyCR72]

3 minutes ago, Raja said:

While serialized soap might win awards and get first run ratings when a minor network is showing four episodes and hoping you watch one it makes the old crime of the week show much better for syndication. I wouldn't be surprised if later SVU years get treated like the Stone years of the mothership and get withdrawn from some packages 

The Stone years are shown. As a matter of fact, WE is showing those seasons now. Sundance does, too. So they are still well represented. As for it missing, I think it depends on what season packages the cable channels buy.

I know ION only shows the tail end of L&O as another example.

[Raja]

10 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

The Stone years are shown. As a matter of fact, WE is showing those seasons now. Sundance does, too. So they are still well represented. As for it missing, I think it depends on what season packages the cable channels buy.

I know ION only shows the tail end of L&O as another example.

But TNT doesn't which suggests that different packages are available and it is not all 19 years or nothing 

[illdoc]

9 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

I know ION only shows the tail end of L&O as another example.

Right---Season 13-20. However, I once caught an early L&O (Logan & Briscoe) on a Spanish language station (Ch. 44 in Chicago), so they are around. I have Seasonn 1-17 (mothership) on DVD. They include the Homicide half of crossovers, but not any SVU halves of crossovers. Only SVU seems to be on Netflix (not mothership nor CI). 

[WendyCR72]

7 minutes ago, illdoc said:

Right---Season 13-20. However, I once caught an early L&O (Logan & Briscoe) on a Spanish language station (Ch. 44 in Chicago), so they are around. I have Seasonn 1-17 (mothership) on DVD. They include the Homicide half of crossovers, but not any SVU halves of crossovers. Only SVU seems to be on Netflix (not mothership nor CI). 

Actually, the Mothership and CI were also on Netflix three years ago (Just for reference, I do mean US Netflix as each branch has its own content). However, Netflix dropped those. I even recall speaking to a Netflix employee asking for them to be reinstated. He claimed they were getting a lot of calls about them, but they never did return. Maybe the licensing fee asked was too high? I have no idea.

[JyDanzig]

I also think it's crazy that you can't stream the mothership anywhere.  I would stream that all the time, if I could.  I would sign up to a service just for that.  When they first got pulled from Netflix, I imagined it must be because NBC was planning to launch their own streaming service and wanted a lot of their properties to live there exclusively.  But as the years have passed without even any rumblings of that, it becomes stranger and stranger to me that this huge decades-spanning franchise is mostly just not available anywhere in the streaming space.

Edited August 16, 2017 by JyDanzig

[ForeverAlone]

Even with SVU on Netflix, only seasons 14-17 are currently available (I imagine season 18 will hit in the next month or two). I THINK all of the SVU seasons are on Hulu, but I am not a fan of that service, so I don't use it. I agree about the mothership on Netflix (or even Amazon). I would love to stream that series. I have only seen a few episodes here and there, but always liked it. 

[ForeverAlone]

So maybe my fantasy of Barba and Stone hate screwing on Barba's desk won't come to pass? :) :) :) But other than that, this could be interesting. I love some good legal fireworks. I like the tension between the detectives and the ADA. This could be good if written well. 

I’m glad that Philip Winchester will be heading to SVU. Any scoop? — Scott
Don’t be so excited: Philip Winchester’s Peter Stone is definitely going to be a foil for Barba this season — though the Chicago Justice character isn’t necessarily taking his job. “There’s more than one A.D.A. in New York,” EP Michael Chernuchin says. “They will be antagonists. Philip will come in and he won’t be the nicest person our characters have ever met. What he’s going to be doing, too, is basically bringing all of the franchises into one. He’s connecting Law & Order, the Chicago franchises and now SVU.”

http://ew.com/tv/2017/08/17/spoiler-room-arrow-once-upon-time-scandal/

[Xeliou66]

It's gotten so ridiculous how they are trying to connect the L&O series with the Chicago Series. They are nothing alike, you wouldn't even know they were connected if you didn't know Dick Wolf produced both, and the ties are becoming incredibly forced. It seems Churnuchin and Wolf won't accept that Chicago Justice was a bad idea and that the mothership is dead. I just hope Churnuchin can focus on fixing SVU's problems instead of trying to revive Chicago Justice or the mothership, which is what Dick Wolf really wants. NBC was so stupid to cancel it after season 20.

I hope with the addition of Stone there will be more courtroom scenes this year, and it will be interesting to see what Stone's role is and how him and Barba interact. I like adding in another ADA, maybe having Barba report to Stone like Cabot had to report to a couple of different executives in the early years. I think Stone can be a good character as long as they don't force out Barba to get him in or constantly try to put in Chicago connections. I sure hope we don't see an SVU/Chicago crossover this year, it's gotten ridiculous. 

[Zoe]

On 8/6/2017 at 11:18 AM, dttruman said:

What do you want to bet that we will see more of Hargitay's husband on SVU in the future. There have been a few articles put out there about Peter Hermann, Mariska and their family. How they have a happy family life and (by no coincidence) how he has guest starred on SVU numerous times. Is they where Harigtay makes her power play to start using family members as regulars a la Roseanne Barr and her tv series?

They already had their <wink wink, nudge nudge> moment a few years ago when Rollins told her to go for him, and Benson said she doesn't date lawyers.

[QueenMab]

...and Rollins fired right back at Benson " oh yeah, since when?" Haden had been gone for 3 years...wonder what lawyer made her say that, hmmmmm?

[Gigi43]

I wasn't impressed with Winchester /Stone. I didn't  dislike him but the whole show was take or leave for me. If they want to bring on another  ADA  they should have built on Robert Sean Leonard's character. I thought maybe they didn't have the money to keep him around more, they don't even have recuring MEs/forensics techs anymore yet apparently they're paying Brooks Shields to recur for some Benson personal drama? I'm not  eagerly anticipating the new season. I know I'll  be watching though...

Edited August 18, 2017 by Gigi43

[Xeliou66]

I liked Stone but I didn't like Chicago Justice. Like I've said before, it was a bad idea, it tried to be L&O but a show like that isn't compatible with the Chicago shows, which have a very authoritarian tone where everything is black and white and we are encouraged to sympathize with dirty cops who abuse suspects. The opposite of what L&O franchise is, all about the shades of gray in the system and how everything is murky and nothing is clear cut, and where the characters had respect for the law. The show just didn't work as a result. 

I'm not happy at all about Brooke Shields coming on to create more personal drama for Benson, no doubt as some relative of Noah who wants custody. I'm so sick of Benson's personal drama and we need less of it, not more. I was hoping with Churnuchin taking over we would have less Benson stories but it seems it's Mariska who's really in charge and we will be constantly bombarded with Benson's personal drama. I wish they would focus more on the cases and I wish they would bring back some recurring characters such as lab people, CSU's, ME Warner and some other legal people. The only recurring characters we have now are Calhoun, Buchanan and a couple of the judges.

I wish we would see more of Robert Sean Leonard's character O'Dwyer as well, he's a good ADA and I hope they bring him back in the future. I agree I would rather see him than Stone. 

[RafaelBarba35]

19 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I hope with the addition of Stone there will be more courtroom scenes this year, and it will be interesting to see what Stone's role is and how him and Barba interact. I like adding in another ADA, maybe having Barba report to Stone like Cabot had to report to a couple of different executives in the early years. 

Isn't Stone younger than Barba? Why would they make the older ADA with more experience answer to the younger ADA with less experience? All the executives that Cabot reported to were older. 

Edited August 18, 2017 by RafaelBarba35

[Gigglepuff]

@RafaelBarba35 I don't know the ages of the characters, but in real life, Winchester is 11 years younger that Raul. 

Edited August 18, 2017 by Gigglepuff

[ForeverAlone]

A little taste of what the season premiere will be about.

http://ew.com/tv/2017/08/18/svu-season-19-premiere-script/

[CelticBlackCat]

Yay!  A Fin-centric epi!  For sure I'm gonna tune in for the season premier.

[wknt3]

1 hour ago, CelticBlackCat said:

Yay!  A Fin-centric epi!  For sure I'm gonna tune in for the season premier.

Just read the article and I'm even more optimistic, but still cautious. They've promised us Fin focused stories before and given us Benson hagiography instead after all. Remember all the talk about how we were going to get an episode delving into Fin's past service with the Rangers? But given the plot described in the article it seems like it would be much harder to pull that sort of bait and switch since he almost has to put the story into motion and be a major focus. And it's a refreshingly new and different idea with obvious potential for Benson in an actual CO role and interesting legal maneuvering. If they pull this off I will be very happy.

[Xeliou66]

Sounds good, I'm glad we get another Fin story, he usually gets very underused. Also glad we get some legal stuff and Barba will be used, I've always loved the courtroom/legal side of SVU. We need more of Fin and Barba and I'm glad they will be getting some attention to start the year, especially because I don't have high expectations for this season. 

The story about Fin going outside the country and the international legal battle sounds somewhat like Manhunt. 

[Picture It. Sicily]

I don't trust anything TPTB tell us anymore. They've been lying for years.

[Raja]

On 8/18/2017 at 10:23 AM, RafaelBarba35 said:

Isn't Stone younger than Barba? Why would they make the older ADA with more experience answer to the younger ADA with less experience? All the executives that Cabot reported to were older. 

Perhaps because of the transfer, On Chicago Justice Young Stone seemed to be in the same functional position of Daddy Stone in the mothership. On the other hand he is new to New York, but then Detectives Munch, Fontana and few other son SVU and Criminal Intent all transferred to the NYPD with relative rank intact instead of being like LAPD where one has to start as a rookie going through the acadamy and a probationary year or as a chief which was the inspiration for The Closer.  A very experienced, compared to the two characters she replaced when Connie Rubirosa went to LA as the junior Deputy DA

Edited August 20, 2017 by Raja

[QueenMab]

Barba was supposed to be the "tall poppy" of the DA's office. The career focused ambitious Harvard lawyer who hung with the wealthy and connected because he had "political aspirations". That's what they told us...continually. Yet all we've actually seen is Barba using all his energy to advance Benson's career so she gets two highly unlikely promotions and basically runs the NYPD while Barba's career is circling the drain. Last season, instead of promoting him they reveal an unethical "secret" that gets him suspended and pretty much busted back to a "so what?" rookie with no status or power at all. In "Know it All" he tells Benson they may have worked their last case together. They shouldn't have "worked" any cases together at all! He's a lawyer not a freaking cop. The police "work" the cases. All Barba is supposed to do as ADA is go into court and "sell it" to a Judge and Jury. Now, they're bringing in another ADA as a "foil for Barba". Barba doesn't need a foil! Barba shouldn't have a "foil". Ambitious, career goal focused Barba should have been moving up the career ladder too. He should have been Executive ADA by now at least.  Haden, younger than Barba was EADA from the get go and got a big deal offer to join some Federal Task Force. Rubirosa, an average ADA at best gets a status job offer in L.A. Meanwhile, Barba in five years, has sunk to being nothing more than Benson's "little bitch on a leash" mooning around that big intolerable cow of a cop like she's the only thing on earth he has to live for. The Barba the show sold us and the Barba we actually got are two entirely different animals. He's almost a sad joke of a lawyer. And now we have another ADA to shove him down the drain a little more. I'm not looking forward to this season at all. I kind of wish they would just kill him and put him, and us, out of his misery. I don't have high hopes.

[Gigglepuff]

11 minutes ago, QueenMab said:

Barba was supposed to be the "tall poppy" of the DA's office. The career focused ambitious Harvard lawyer who hung with the wealthy and connected because he had "political aspirations". That's what they told us...continually. Yet all we've actually seen is Barba using all his energy to advance Benson's career so she gets two highly unlikely promotions and basically runs the NYPD while Barba's career is circling the drain. Last season, instead of promoting him they reveal an unethical "secret" that gets him suspended and pretty much busted back to a "so what?" rookie with no status or power at all

Exactly @QueenMab. I'm so over him. He's little more than an extension of Benson, used to tell her story and advance her career. I couldn't care less about what happens to him now. And to be honest, I don't even care if they try to "fix" him or redeem him somehow. Too little too late for me I guess. Quite honestly, I look back at Barba's early years, and sure he had ambition and the whole Harvard lawyer etc....but he was never all that well developed in the first place. I think for me, I was a bit taken in by Raul's acting abilities and Barba's flash. Whatever, he can go now.

 

I was kind of happy to hear that Stone will be giving him and the squad a hard time, and that he isn't going to be "the nicest person they've ever met." Good. They all need a reality check. We'll see though, I've been let down by what the show has promised before. Keeping my fingers crossed. One last chance show!! 

Edited August 19, 2017 by Gigglepuff

[QueenMab]

Gigglepuff...."too little too late". Yep. Couldn't help but love Barba but his character has been a mish mash all along. They've sunk his character so deep I don't think it is "redeemable" even if they tried. Ahhh....just shoot the poor bastard, nail his coffin shut and be done with it. :)

[wknt3]

8 hours ago, QueenMab said:

Rubirosa, an average ADA at best gets a status job offer in L.A.

Hey now! Say what you will about Benson or Barba, but I have to strongly disagree with you about Rubirosa. Connie was an excellent ADA. It was shown many times that she was a talented attorney who could keep up with Jack McCoy and any defense lawyer and was respected by everyone. It is totally believable that she would get prestigious job offers and we shouldn't blame the character for SVU's poor writing. Speaking of which if they really are trying to bring in some mother ship connections this season maybe they could bring her back again and make up for wasting her in the garbage that was "Jersey Beakdown".

[Xeliou66]

I loved Rubirosa and I would love to see her appear again. She was one of my favorite mothership ADA's. I wish Jack McCoy was still DA, it would be awesome to see him pop up a few times the way the DA always did when the mothership was on. Also Lupo or Bernard could make a guest appearance, they are probably still homicide detectives or maybe one of them has been promoted, I would like to see one of them again.

They could have appearances from mothership characters on SVU and keep the memory of the great show around instead of trying to force the whole Chicago connections which frankly don't make any sense whatsoever. Dick Wolf tried to put a new L&O in with the "One Chicago" franchise and it just didn't work because of the stark difference between the franchises, the Chicago shows, well Fire and PD anyway, are very heavy handed and exist in a black and white world where the show's protagonists are always right and have a right wing authority bias with PD supporting torture. L&O on the other hand is a lot about the murky shades of gray that exist in various cases and trials and how nothing is clear cut. The shows just don't mix, and Chicago Justice was an attempt to mix them by bringing an L&O style and several L&O characters and mixing in elements of the Chicago shows, resulting in a failed show that frequently made no sense because an L&O type show isn't compatible with the Chicago franchises unless they are trying to bring down the Chicago PD. And now Churnuchin won't let it go and is going to bring on Peter Stone in an attempt to keep his failed show alive. Nothing against Peter Stone, but I don't see what he can do for SVU and his appearances will be forced and I don't want less Barba.

That was a long winded rant but I'm just getting fed up at the forced Chicago connections and how Churnuchin is more concerned with a failed experiment it seems than fixing SVU's problems, although I do expect some better writing, he is a good writer and I think the show will have less of a hipster/SJW bias preachiness that many have complained about that targets one demographic above everyone else. But I'm not happy about having more Benson personal drama or about more Chicago connections. 

[dttruman]

I wonder what kind of character Brooke shields will play? Will Olivia become bi-curious and have a new love interest or maybe she will have a long lost half-sister pop out of nowhere? I have a feeling one of the episodes will be about a government conspiracy that connects the White House with the Russians and will take all the efforts and courage from one dedicated New York SVU officer (Olivia Benson) to solve it.

[QueenMab]

HAHAHAHA! I think its going to be a "family thing" but I like your scenario better. SVU is the "Olivia Benson Soap Opera Hour" and this is perfect! LOL.

[QueenMab]

How about this....Shields is Barba's bang type, taller than him, dark hair and eyes...what if she is Noah's relative, she comes in, snags Barba away from Benson, has red hot monkey sex with him and bangs him into helping her get Noah away from St.Benson? Let the soap opera games begin! 

[Xeliou66]

I don't know what show you're watching Queen Mab but it isn't SVU. Your obsession with Benson's sex life is bizarre to say the least. 

Brooke Shields will no doubt be playing some relative of Noah that wants custody.

[Picture It. Sicily]

Benson seems asexual to me, quite frankly. TPTB push these relationships In a way that isn't organic, so Mariska lacks chemistry with them once it becomes romantic and seems self-conscious. People like Tucker and Cassidy that she had interesting scenes with when they weren't romantic go over or a lead balloon to me once they try to turn it into a 'Ship. And im sorry, but i will never forget the way Tucker treated her when he was IAB. Also, at this point Benson doesn't trust any man not to rape. She needs to get back to the shrink and work on that before she destorys that kid she never would have allowed to adopt in the real world. As far as Brooke goes, Occam's Razor, she's going to interfere with Noah. Because the fangirls on SM love Noah stories. Even if no one else does.

[QueenMab]

As usual, y'all went dead serious. We were just playin' for cripe sake. Your the ones who seem really emotionally invested in this dog and pony show. Laugh. The show is basically about Benson's sex life....fair game. For LAUGHS. What a bunch of "Debbie Downers".

[sockii]

2 hours ago, Picture It. Sicily said:

Benson seems asexual to me, quite frankly. TPTB push these relationships In a way that isn't organic, so Mariska lacks chemistry with them once it becomes romantic and seems self-conscious. People like Tucker and Cassidy that she had interesting scenes with when they weren't romantic go over or a lead balloon to me once they try to turn it into a 'Ship.

For me personally, the only character I felt Olivia had real sexual chemistry with was Alex Cabot.

[QueenMab]

Thank you Sockii. I agree! LOL.

[dttruman]

After reading all of these and others concerning the plot lines over years, I think we all agreed that the Olivia Benson character has become far too prominent. Would everyone say this is the cause of major reduction in cast members and the inconsistent along with the unrealistic development of the other characters and story lines?

[QueenMab]

Basically yes. In the tradition of soap operas, there is one character that is the focus, the reason for the show, the impetus. Think "All My Children". Erica Kane. How many husbands? 8 or 9? The soap was about sex. Who is Erica sleeping with, scheming with, scheming against, plotting to dump so she can hookup with another? SVU has followed that format for years now.Unfortunately, the main character has become a strident, intolerable bully who isn't even close to being anything like a realistic, competent, professional , "empowered" career woman we might actually root for. And the other characters are just "satellites" who bend and adjust to whatever appalling behavior the main character exhibits to move along a story that is about sex...and her. And her sex. In the past season or so, instead of hooking her up with another man, they've hooked her up with a male child. And its worn very thin. An unlikeable main character they keep pushing at us as some sort of Goddess of Attraction to men that we are just not buying anymore. A character who violates every moral parameter and professional ethic of her all important job on a regular basis. And gets rewarded for it. And the other characters including an ADA who should have been fired AND disbarred long ago, are always there to worship, condone and support her behavior, which is always justified because "you know you did the right thing". COWPATTIES. And I don't expect any of that to change.

[Gigglepuff]

2 hours ago, dttruman said:

After reading all of these and others concerning the plot lines over years, I think we all agreed that the Olivia Benson character has become far too prominent. Would everyone say this is the cause of major reduction in cast members and the inconsistent along with the unrealistic development of the other characters and story lines?

Another part of it from what I understand is budget. Very basically, the older a show gets, the less budget it has. So, take a show like SVU which is going into its 19th season. NBC and other studios put more money into developing new shows than they do financing older ones. Now with SVU, Mariska has become the "star" and she commands a lot of money per episode, compared to when the show was new and before she was a household name. She (and Meloni) could not command the salary she has today. MH is one of the highest paid women in a prime time drama series. So now, much of the show's budget is eaten up by her salary which leaves less money to hire regular, recurring characters, such as Morales, Warner, Huang and others. That's why (partially) SVU is so focused on Benson. She's the "star" and they give her the most story lines however inane they may be. 

[dttruman]

18 hours ago, Gigglepuff said:

Another part of it from what I understand is budget. Very basically, the older a show gets, the less budget it has. So, take a show like SVU which is going into its 19th season. NBC and other studios put more money into developing new shows than they do financing older ones. Now with SVU, Mariska has become the "star" and she commands a lot of money per episode, compared to when the show was new and before she was a household name. She (and Meloni) could not command the salary she has today. MH is one of the highest paid women in a prime time drama series. So now, much of the show's budget is eaten up by her salary which leaves less money to hire regular, recurring characters, such as Morales, Warner, Huang and others. That's why (partially) SVU is so focused on Benson. She's the "star" and they give her the most story lines however inane they may be. 

I made a couple of references to this 'budget" aspect in a couple of other comments, where most of the money is going to Hargitay. But I never thought their total budget was reduced because it is older. I thought the longer running shows on NBC got the bigger budgets as long as they kept their ratings up. I thought SVU was their "top drama" and thereby immune to the budget cuts. I guess it's possible to be a network's No. 1 Drama, but still have under performing ratings. If so, why does NBC keep renewing it? NBC does like to see a political message or two in SVU's episodes, so maybe that is why NBC is renewing it each new season.

[wknt3]

On 8/28/2017 at 0:53 PM, Gigglepuff said:

Another part of it from what I understand is budget. Very basically, the older a show gets, the less budget it has. So, take a show like SVU which is going into its 19th season. NBC and other studios put more money into developing new shows than they do financing older ones. Now with SVU, Mariska has become the "star" and she commands a lot of money per episode, compared to when the show was new and before she was a household name. She (and Meloni) could not command the salary she has today. MH is one of the highest paid women in a prime time drama series. So now, much of the show's budget is eaten up by her salary which leaves less money to hire regular, recurring characters, such as Morales, Warner, Huang and others. That's why (partially) SVU is so focused on Benson. She's the "star" and they give her the most story lines however inane they may be. 

 

On 8/29/2017 at 7:56 AM, dttruman said:

I made a couple of references to this 'budget" aspect in a couple of other comments, where most of the money is going to Hargitay. But I never thought their total budget was reduced because it is older. I thought the longer running shows on NBC got the bigger budgets as long as they kept their ratings up. I thought SVU was their "top drama" and thereby immune to the budget cuts. I guess it's possible to be a network's No. 1 Drama, but still have under performing ratings. If so, why does NBC keep renewing it? NBC does like to see a political message or two in SVU's episodes, so maybe that is why NBC is renewing it each new season.

 

In general shows get more expensive as they get older. Writers, producers, and actors get raises, there are often new cast members added, production accounting shifts costs from failures so they don't have to pay anyone foolish enough to sign a "net profits" deal, sets and equipment may need to be refurbished or replaced, etc. It's one of the reasons that shows usually don't last much longer than 10 years even if they are still highly rated. Basically new episodes are more expensive and also less valuable as ratings are almost always declining even if the decline is slow and they already have enough shows for syndication/cable. One way to address this is to recast. Replace actors looking for a raise with cheaper actors. Think of any long running series and basically you will see almost a complete turnover of cast from beginning to end with at most only a few original characters remaining. Law & Order, ER, CSI, etc. Another way shows stay on the air is to cut the overall per show budget. Dick Wolf is famously willing to pinch pennies any way possible to keep his series on the air.

In particular regarding SVU ratings are down and have been declining for some time (although they did have an uptick in Warren Leight's last seasons) along with everything else on TV. It is not NBC's top rated drama, ranking behind the remaining Chicago series and The Blacklist. It probably is more important financially as they know it will make more money for NBCUniversal in the long run with syndication, USA marathons, DVDs, etc. compared to the higher rated dramas. So it gets renewed, but with budget cuts. And Mariska keeps getting raises since there is plenty of evidence that she is central to retaining the majority of the remaining audience. As @Gigglepuff states she is getting a bigger piece of a slowly shrinking pie, and there is less for everyone else which means fewer cast members, less screen time for the remaining veterans (they get more per episode/scene and more time off instead of more total dollars) and fewer storytelling options. And it's not likely to change much. Even if they do better this season (and I hope they do!) and ratings improve there aren't going to be big budget increases. So they have to be smarter about how they spend what they have and maybe Dick Wolf needs to be willing to break even or take a small loss to reach 20 seasons and perhaps go longer than Gunsmoke and the mothership. As far as why NBC is renewing it there is no need to assume any sort of political agenda. It's a known quantity that makes money off network, and is made by the man who is the only thing keeping them from having to run their big reality franchise into the ground by running 8 hours per week of The Voice. And they've learned from experience that canceling long running Law & Order franchise series for something new and exciting usually doesn't work out so well.

Edited September 4, 2017 by wknt3
autocorrect fail.

[ForeverAlone]

Hmmm... I hope Michael Chernuchin can do ripped from the headlines better than Rick Eid can, because last season was rather painful. It will be interesting to see what results, because none of the things talked about had an obvious SVU connection. 

http://ew.com/tv/2017/08/30/law-order-svu-charlottesville-season-19/

[MadyGirl1987]

1 hour ago, ForeverAlone said:

Hmmm... I hope Michael Chernuchin can do ripped from the headlines better than Rick Eid can, because last season was rather painful. It will be interesting to see what results, because none of the things talked about had an obvious SVU connection. 

http://ew.com/tv/2017/08/30/law-order-svu-charlottesville-season-19/

Oh geez. This is not going to end well. I foresee another unaired episode like last seasons infamous Trump episode. I am all for relevancy in my media, but some things are too soon. Also; with such a delicate topic you have to be a REALLY good writer to pull that off, and SVU hasn't had that quality recently. All In The Family they ain't....

Edited August 30, 2017 by MadyGirl1987

[WendyCR72]

There's "ripped from the headlines" and there's just being opportunistic, IMO. This skates right to the edge of the latter, IMO. If this happened a season or two later (assuming the show hangs on that long), that's one thing. But this soon?

It smacks of bad taste, to me.

[JyDanzig]

The worrying thing in that article is doing an episode about passengers being dragged off planes.  Ripping from the more tabloid-y headlines rarely ends well.

But a Charlottesville-inspired episode could be amazing.  The L&O franchise is always at it's best when it's tackling actual issues of the day.  This is exactly the kind of material they should be taking on.  If this was Rick Eid giving this interview then, yes, obviously the resulting episode would be terrible.  But as of now I have no reason to believe Michael Chernuchin can't pull it off.

What I REALLY like about that interview is that it seems we're going back to a greater diversity of topics, which is exactly what this show has needed for a long time.  The latter Neal Baer years were a trainwreck, but the one thing subsequent showrunners should have kept is that NB episodes weren't afraid to use an initial sex crime or suspected sex crime as a springboard for a totally different type of story.  There's only so many twists you can do on the same basic rape narrative.

[Xeliou66]

The Charlottesville episode could be good or it could be awful. I'm glad SVU isn't shying away from taking on controversial and hot button ripped from the headlines issues, the franchise has always done it and usually done it well, the problem with some of the recent SVU episodes like this is they aren't ripped from the headlines so much as copied from the headlines ( the Ray Rice episode, the fake UVA rape story and a few others ) or seem like some kind of comedic parody ( Gamergate episode ). However there have been plenty of very good SVU ripped from the headlines stories as well and Churnuchin is an excellent writer, he's been with the franchise going all the way back to the Stone years of the mothership so I think the show will be better this year. However I'm not happy about the news of Brooke Shields guest starring and causing more Benson personal drama or about Peter Stone showing up, the Chicago franchise constantly having forced connections to the L&O franchise is ridiculous and the styles of the franchises are totally incompatible