It has become cliché and self-evident to say television has come a long way in the 21st century. It did evolve into the dominant medium for fiction, so it puts every series under major scrutiny from the increasingly more sophisticated public eye. The Law and Order franchise survived in this new era of television mainly because it has become a common experience we've become quietly addicted to. It's the tobacco to Game of Throne's heroin. Josie and I have been digging into Law and Order: SVU, the franchise's longest running series for the last couple weeks and I have observations I wish to share with you. Feel free to tune me out if you're going through it yourself.
- Law and Order: SVU is an anachronism in contemporary television. New series require an overarching storytline and cliffhangers at the end of episodes, to generate weekly buzz on social media. SVU sometimes ends on a down note, but is keeps the use of cliffhangers strictly for season finales. Individual episodes sometimes end on a down note, but they usually are wrapped tight. It's a less exciting approach, but it's cohesive with Law and Order: SVU's overall narrative strategy of comforting viewers. The detectives need to catch a bad guy every week. Whether he's condemned of not, the message of Law and Order: SVU is that there are cops still doing their job to the best of their abilities.
- What's amazing about SVU is that is has no real beginning and no end. Netflix Canada only offers season thirteen to sixteen, but it doesn't change anything to the experience than if I would be watching, let's say season five to season nine, except for some cast changes. The only major one being the departure of Elliot Stabler, after Christopher Meloni decided to give this Hollhywood thing a go. I haven't finished watching the available episodes, but it doesn't matter. I call series like Law and Order: SVU pick up n' go series. They're a simple thing to enjoy and part of that is because it's simple to stop watching them. Unless every detective in the unit dies in a single episode, whatever the end of SVU will be, it'll be completely arbitrary.
- I shouldn't be liking this series as much as I do. It's way too moral and binary for my own taste. It basically separates the universe in two team: rapists and budding rapists vs non-rapists. The fuckers and the fucked. It's so unapologetic though, that is has an idiosyncratic charm. Law and Order: SVU is insanely moral, but it's not moralizing or didactic in any way. Both its evil and righteous characters are equally cartoonish. The noble Olivia Benson is particularly interesting to me, because it's the kind of character that would normally make me froth at the mouth, but her personal life and her professional (and moral) pursuits are such a contradiction, it imbues her professional persona with a subtle enough shade of despair to make her interesting. Benson saves her life by saving others.
- Ice T can't act to save his life, but his part is somehow vital to the success of the series. He's played in the second most episodes of Law and Order: SVU with 348. Only Mariska Hargitay, interpreting Detective Benson played in more - 371. I think it's because his character Odafin Tutuola (don't get me started with anagrams of this name) is the most in-tune with the tone of the show. He's a cartoonish spin off a ghetto cop. Is he a racist stereotype? Probably a little, but he's as profoundly moral as the rest of the crew so who's going to cast Dick Wolfe the first stone? Plus, Tutuola is a very memeable character. He shall live forever on social media.
- I think it's Heath Lowrance who said crime fiction characters don't live in our world. They live in the hyperreality created by alarmist media and I think this applies to Law and Order: SVU. This is why the series ultimately works and why I don't see it losing efficiency anytime soon: there are characters on screen dealing with our worst fears and showing an acceptable level of control over them. It's why Law and Order: SVU really IS a comforting series at heart and that it's difficult to stop watching. Season 17 started last night and I'm expecting it to have as much success as the others as long as it keeps up with the formula and the level of writing.
Do YOU watch Law and Order: SVU? You probably do (or did at some point). What are your opinions on the show? What do you like/hate about it?