Spotlight on Fandoms: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

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In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.

- Intro to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

The Show Itself

Almost 20 years ago, Dick Wolf had an idea. There were lots of cop shows, and there were plenty of lawyer shows -- why not combine them into one show that spent the first half-hour investigating the crime, and the second half prosecuting it? One case, start to finish, with the cops and lawyers butting heads about how to proceed -- and with the prosecutors actually playing the role of Good Guys for once. (Usually, prosecutors are ego-driven blowhards who are wrongly convicting an innocent man, not the ones who fight for justice and victims' rights.)

The resulting show, Law & Order, was a hit. So much so that it's just completed its nineteenth season on the air. The show was largely a procedural, focused primarily on the crimes, and not the regular cast members who solved them. The cops and lawyers ushered in each new case, and we only saw glimpses of their personal lives now and then -- when the current case interrupts a hot date, for example. This also meant the revolving door of cast changes came and went without a hitch.

In 1999, the first spin-off premiered. Dick Wolf originally wanted to call it "Law and Order: Sex Crimes," but the network had a fit, so the title was prettied up to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The show was based on a real-life squad in New York that focuses on sex crimes, as well as any cases where the victims are minors or the elderly. For the first season, the show was much more character-driven than its predecessor -- we saw a great deal of Elliot Stabler's home life, for example -- and it only had a police squad; no lawyers, except in occasional cameos. The first season, it must also be said, sucked. It had some good moments, but it was a little too soapy and a little too tongue-in-cheek. Despite this, it managed to crack the top 20 its first season.

The show was retooled a bit for season two, introducing its first full-time Assistant District Attorney, assigned to work with the squad, and focusing more on the gritty cases. The resulting show was a much tighter drama, and has gone up in ratings ever since. Currently, it's out-performing the original L&O, even though I'm a bit meh on the last couple of seasons. It's still highly watchable, especially now that Alex is coming back part-time. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Cast of Characters

Cops

• Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) - she rocks the huge doe eyes and specializes in getting victims to open up to her. She joined the squad because she's a child of rape -- her father attacked her mother one night. She gets too caught up in the cases, now and then, but she's a good cop. She also used to rock a seriosly awesome butchy hardass look. Then Mariska Hargitay started bitching that everyone assumed the character was a lesbian, and she haaaaaaaaaated it, so they femmed her up and made her more weepy and touchy-feely. Boooo, Mariska. Butchy Olivia was hot.


• Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) - Elliot is a former Marine with massive anger-management issues. He nearly gets suspended for admitting that he sometimes fantasizes about killing the perps he arrests, and he likes to toe the line of excessive force. He's very Catholic and has a loving wife and four kids, until she gets sick of him never being home and divorces him. Then they get back together a few seasons later, anyway, and have a fifth kid.


• John Munch (Richard Belzer) - If you ever saw Homicide: Life on the Streets (another Dick Wolf show) then you're already familiar with Munch. The cynical conspiracy-happy detective transfers from Baltimore to New York after his latest divorce. He's funny, dry, and horrified by how much worse Sex Crimes is than Homicide ever was. As he says, "It's the living victims that rip your guts out." Munch is criminally underused.


• Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) - Fin is a Narcotics hotshot who transfers early in season two. He's paired with Munch, and there is no joy like the joy of watching these two banter. Or like watching Ice-T go undercover as a pimp or drug dealer. Seriously. Fin gets sick of the unit and tries to transfer out at one point, but it turns out he screwed over the cop who's in charge of processing transfers, so he's sticking around for now.


• Donald Cragen (Dann Florek) - the captain in charge of the squad. He was captain over on original-L&O early on, until the network got upset about the all-male cast and insisted some diversity happen. So they tapped him for the spin-off. He's a former alcoholic who is tough, but fair in handling his underlings. He's also been referred to as "Dad" on at least one occasion.

Lawyers

• Alex Cabot (Stephanie March) - Alex is assigned to be the newly-created liaison between the DA's office as a whole and the SVU squad in particular. She's blonde, ballsy, and doesn't back down from a fight. She plays fast and loose with the rules, but has an almost idealistic belief in Justice, and both of those bite her in the ass now and then. The squad doesn't trust her, at first, thinking she's there to spy on them, but she comes to be part of the family. When she's mowed down and declared dead in the line of duty, it rocks everyone. (Seasons 2-5)


• Casey Novak (Diane Neal) - Casey joins SVU in Alex's wake. No one likes her at first, mainly because they're all still missing Alex, but she earns their respect and their trust. Casey gets a bad rap from fandom, largely because she's Not Alex, but I happen to be a big fan of hers. She's feisty, she learns from her mistakes, and she once subpoena'd Donald Rumsfeld. What's not to love? (Seasons 5-9)


• Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus) - Greylek has an even worse reputation in fandom, but this one is all her fault. I've never seen Michaela McManus in anything else, so I don't know if she can't act at all or was just horribly unsuited for this type of show, but wow. Dead eyes, flat delivery, and she makes Serena Southerlyn look like a decent lawyer. (Inside L&O joke that no one will get.) She was so bad that they fired her mid-season, and then finished the term with rotating guests. One of whom was Stephanie March, reprising the Alex Cabot role. Huzzah! (Season 10)

Other

• Dr. George Huang (B. D. Wong) - Psychiatrist. He transferred from the FBI to work with the squad. Most of the cops are leery of having a head-shrinker around, but they come to appreciate his insight.


• Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie) - the medical examiner. Performs autopsies, runs tox screens, that sort of thing. She went through the Air Force to pay for med school, so on at least one occasion, she proves that she knows how to fire a gun.


• Liz Donnelly (Judith Light) - she's the Bureau Chief (Alex's mentor and boss) at the DA's office starting from season 3, in a minorly recurring role, but she gets a mention here because of how much she seriously kicks ass. She moves over to being a judge in season 7, and continues to win at life. In the season 10 finale, it was advertised that one background member was going to die, and leaked spoilers pointed to her. Large chunks of fandom seethed until the show aired and it turned out to be a fake-out: she was attacked, but recovered. Whew.

Why You Should Watch It

It's a smart, gritty procedural that deals with some particularly vicious crimes in a fairly realistic manner. Granted, it's still TV-land, but it's not afraid to go uncomfortable places, or have the Bad Guys (TM) win -- or even make a case for there being no real bad guys. I.e., in one season finale, the spree-killer is actually a man suffering from undiagnosed late-stage syphilis, who was receiving instructions directly from God to save people from their wickedness by murdering them -- which he relates to the psychiatrist in tears. It's messy, and it's filled with gray areas.

A small caveat: do not watch too much of it all at once, if you are new to the show. Ease into it. When I decided to app Alex, I hadn't watched L&O in years, and I mainlined her canon to brush up on specifics, at a speed-run. Bad move. If you want to try to do something like that, keep some YouTube clips of puppies and kittens and babies laughing handy. You will need them.

How You Can Get Your Hands On It

Unfortunately, NBC polices its copyright pretty heavily. I got a Cease-and-Desist order from my ISP for downloading one of the full seasons (one that I already had on DVD, but couldn't rip to my laptop, because of the copyright protection -- thanks, NBC!) and clips on YouTube are few and far between.

The good news is that the cable channel USA airs episodes of SVU all the fucking time. No, seriously. They had the syndication rights from the very first episode, and they generally show one or two a day, when they aren't cueing up marathons. Which happens once every couple of weeks. On Tuesday, for example, they're showing fourteen episodes in seventeen hours. If you have a TiVo, plug the show in and wait. But check back frequently, or else you'll have a clogged TiVo.

Since it's a procedural, focusing more on isolated crimes than on the lives and times of its cast members, there's no need to watch the show in anything resembling its chronological order, which means, conveniently, you can start damn near anywhere and watch whatever episode USA cues up next.

Questions? Comments? Pie?