Genres

The series vacated its Tuesday 10 p.m. ET slot in fall 2009 when NBC began a prime-time weeknight Jay Leno series. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was moved to Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET on NBC, while CTV still airs SVU on Tuesdays at 10:00 in Canada. The eleventh season premiered its new time slot on September 23, 2009. After the 2010 Winter Olympics on March 3, 2010, SVU returned to its previous time slot of 10 p.m. ET, although on Wednesdays rather than Tuesdays as it had previously.

Casting for the lead characters of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit occurred in the spring of 1999. Dick Wolf, along with officials from NBC and Studios USA were at the final auditions for the two leads at Rockefeller Center. The last round had been narrowed down to six finalists. For the female lead, Detective Olivia Benson, actresses Samantha Mathis, Reiko Aylesworth, and Mariska Hargitay were being considered. For the male role, Detective Elliot Stabler, the finalists were Tim Matheson, Nick Chinlund, and Christopher Meloni. Hargitay and Meloni had auditioned in the final round together and, after the actors left, there was a moment of de...

The first actor to be cast for the show was Dann Florek. Florek had originated the character of Don Cragen in the 1988 pilot for Law & Order and played the character for the first three seasons of the show until he was fired on the orders of network executives, who wanted to add female characters to the all male primary cast. He maintained a friendly relationship with Wolf, however, and went on to direct three episodes of the original series as well as to occasionally guest star on the show. Shortly after Florek reprised his role for Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, he received a call to be on Sex Crimes. Initially reluctant, he eventually agreed...

The original title of the show was Sex Crimes, reflecting the sexual nature of the crimes depicted on the show. Initially there was concern among the producers that, should Sex Crimes fail, identifying the new show with the Law & Order franchise could hurt the original show. Additionally, Ted Kotcheff wanted to create a new series that was not dependent upon the original series for success. Wolf felt, however, that it was important and commercially desirable to have "Law & Order" in the title, and he initially proposed the title of the show be Law & Order: Sex Crimes. Barry Diller, then head of Studios USA, was concerned about the title, howe...

Executive producer Neal Baer is set to leave Law & Order: SVU as show-runner at the end of the twelfth season; after eleven years (seasons 2–12) on the show as show-runner, not renewing his NBC contract and signing a three-year deal with CBS Studios.

Many exterior scenes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are filmed on location in New York City, Dick Wolf's hometown, throughout all five of New York City's boroughs. As the NYPD encounters varied law enforcement challenges on a daily basis, the backdrop provides the writers a supply of ideal locations to choose from.

When searching for a place to film the interiors of the show, the producers discovered that there were no suitable studio spaces available in New York City. As a result, a space was chosen at NBC's Central Archives building in nearby North Bergen, New Jersey, which had sat empty for some time, and featured air-conditioning, adequate parking, and 53,000 square feet (4,900 m2) of stage area. The Archives building is used for police station and courtroom scenes.

The show originally aired on Monday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET for the first nine episodes, from September 20 through November 29, 1999. It was then shifted to Friday nights at 10 p.m. ET on January 7, 2000, and remained in that time slot through the end of season four on May 16, 2003. Beginning with the season five premiere on September 23, 2003, SVU moved to Tuesday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET and occasionally has run previous shows on Saturday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET. The USA Network also runs previous episodes on weekday afternoons, generally in a block from 3 to 5 p.m. ET.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit originally centered almost exclusively around the detectives of the Special Victims Unit in a fictional version of the 16th Precinct of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). In the style of the original Law & Order, episodes are often "ripped from the headlines" or loosely based on real crimes that have received media attention. The show stars Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler, a senior detective in the Manhattan SVU, and Mariska Hargitay as his partner, Detective Olivia Benson. As the series progressed, additional supporting characters were added as allies of the detectives in the Manhatta...

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is currently the highest-rated series of the Law & Order franchise, and presently NBC's top rated scripted drama. The series has been nominated for and won numerous awards, including the 2006 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Hargitay (the first Emmy to be received by a regular on any Law & Order series).

The idea for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit originated with the 1986 "preppie murder" case of Robert Chambers, who strangled Jennifer Levin, a woman he dated who he later killed during what he claimed was consensual "rough sex" in Manhattan's Central Park. The crime inspired Dick Wolf to write the story for the season one episode of Law & Order titled "Kiss the Girls and Make them Die". Even after writing the episode, however, the case continued to haunt Wolf, who wanted to go deeper into the psychology of crimes to examine the role of human sexuality.

To summarize the plot: Evil Satanic Sorcerer fails to sacrifice his own son to Lucifer so kills the mother instead by ripping her heart out and banishing the child. The Sorcerer dies a "horrible death" and somehow the son, Jonathan, learns that he has inherited the house.

After Jeff's mother died, he started acting up. His father not knowing what to do with him consults his friend, Kim. Kim suggests that Jeff join a Kenpo school, and Jeff seems to have all of his negative energy under control but when he seriously injures someone, Jeff's father throws him out. Years later, Jeff still stays in touch with Kim and when he calls him he gets the impression that Kim is in trouble. Jeff rushes to help him but too late. Jeff's relationship with his father is still strained. When a Korean gives him info on who is responsible, so he goes out like a bat out of hell but he is told that he is being used. And sets out to fi...

What happens when a man-eating crocodile begins picking off tourists in beautiful Lake Placid? What if the crocodile wants to make it his home?