The 'Law & Order: SVU' changes keep on coming: B.D. Wong has confirmed he's departing the hit NBC drama.

Wong, who has played Dr. George Huang on 'SVU' since 2001, co-stars opposite Jason Isaacs and Cherry Jones in NBC's midseason drama 'Awake.' He confirmed his departure from 'SVU' on Twitter while live-tweeting an 'SVU' marathon. Thanks to TVLine for the tip.

"I actually do not return for season 13 of @nbcsvu #SVU!" he wrote. "I am jumping to @nbcAwake #Awake! it's awesome!"

Wong's departure is just one of the many changes on the long-running procedural. Series star Christopher Meloni didn't renew his contract and co-star Mariska Hargitay's character Olivia Benson will transition to a new role within the police force. Ice-T has signed a new two-year deal to remain on 'SVU.'

(S08E22) Was it me, or was there just too much happening in this episode? "Screwed" was a culmination of not just this entire season, but of the entire series. And we're left, once again, to wonder whether the SVU squad is going to be disseminated.

The episode starred Ludacris, reprising his role as Det. Tutuola's stepson, Darius, from a March 2006 episode. But, despite the stellar acting job from Ludacris, it wasn't about him at all. In fact, his alleged crime wasn't even the center of the story (I stopped trying to remember the Ludacris episode when I realized that it didn't matter). Instead, Ludacris was the tool the writers used to pick apart all the mistakes the SVU detectives have made over the years and leave us hanging about their fate. The detectives were the ones on trial.

(S08E21) I hate it when the promos ruin an episode. It's hard to tell whether this episode of SVU was a good one because I knew from the promos that the girlfriend was a "black widow". It took a really, really long time for the story to unfold and I felt impatient because I wanted to see the evil side of this girl.

(S08E20) Usually I would say that if Elliot Stabler gets naked, it's gonna be a great episode. I wouldn't call it "great", but it was "good". It's surprising, really, because the topic was incredibly emotional. A man killed his wife and children because his lies were getting out of hand. It's a believable premise because we've seen it played out too many times in the news media (even though L&O didn't promote this one as "ripped from the headlines").

The episode was Elliot-centric, which usually means his family is somehow involved. It was. He saw a man who was bored with his life in Staten Island, so he started making up a new life for himself complete with a fiance who thought he was a CIA agent. Of course, it imploded and, as Dr. Wong said, family killers are so narcissistic that they can't live with the shame of being caught in their lies.

(S08E19) This was the best episode this season, hands down. Det. Olivia Benson's entire world came crashing down around her. Her entire motivation for being an SVU detective was brought into question. There was an awful lot revealed in this episode about Benson's past.

The writers and Mariska Hargitay did a spectacular job convincing me that she had completely lost her mind. Det. Benson appeared to be blindly helping her brother evade the law because she couldn't believe that he was a rapist, just like their father. After the last episode with Simon, I fully believed that he was guilty and I thought she did too.

(S08E18) Okay, I loved the dog owners in this episode. Their priorities were completely skewed. They found a dead teen-ager in their bed, but they were more disturbed by the fact that their dog hadn't been walked while they were on vacation.

This episode was about a subject they love over at SVU: drunk, rich kids. This time, though, the kids aren't the worst of the worst. The real bad guy is a young mother who wants teen-age boys to think she's hot and for her daughter to be popular with her classmates. She buys the kids alcohol and medicates her daughter's problems with alcohol.

(S08E16) For the most part, I really enjoyed this episode. I liked how the two storylines intertwined- with Liv's search for her brother having an impact on her ability to do her job. What I didn't like was the third storyline of Olivia and Elliot being "too close" and the threat of splitting them up. That's a tired story. They already broke up last season when Mariska Hargitay's pregnancy became too obvious to hide, so Olivia ditched Elliot for after she realized they were too close.

I spent most of this episode being pissed off at Olivia for allowing Elliot to drag himself into her mess. She was way over the line in doing kinship DNA testing in the police database and in stalking her half-brother. Liv had to keep telling lies to cover for her screw ups and Elliot backed her up. Obviously they are "too close" because they're now supporting each other's extra curricular activities.

(S08E14) Just like last week, this episode took a complete turn a little more than halfway through. I felt pretty unhappy with the ending because, once again, it seemed rushed. An entire murder investigation was wrapped up extremely quickly and then another storyline was opened with Elliot and his wife- all in the last 25 minutes of the show.

The episode started out like any other. A father (Cary Elwes) and his son arrive at his estranged wife's house to find someone inside. The mother is dead, the father gets whacked on the head with a vase and the boy runs for his life. It turns out the family may have the mob after them, but that lead dries up quickly. Then the father remembers seeing his daughter in the house and the investigation quickly turns to her. She was on drugs that made her violent and she had a violent relationship with her mother. The case pretty much seems wrapped up until tests come back to reveal that the urine in the toilet that proved the daughter was high on drugs, did not belong to her. It was a man's - probably her boyfriend.

(S08E05) Det. Stabler wears tightie whities! Is that what stood out to the rest of you in this episode, too? Maybe it's just a girl thing but he makes those undies look goooood (she says, in a Will Smith/Men in Black sort-of way).

We finally learn exactly what happened when Det. Beck's husband was killed on the job: two 15-year olds stole a car and decided to get stupid when they got caught by 'Mike'. They shot him in the head. I thoroughly enjoyed Dani's iciness when Det. Stabler attempted to talk to her about the crime. He figured out that she went up to the prison, but not to see the shooters. She went to see the dead body of one of the shooters who was killed in a prison brawl. All ice, that woman.

Ian Somerhalder, who played Boone until he met his untimely demise on the first season of Lost, will play the lead role in a miniseries about Venetian traveler Marco Polo. The miniseries is about Polo's travels to Mongolia in the 13th Century and subsequent adventures. Co-stars are Brian Dennehy and B.D. Wong (Law & Order: SVU). So far, no television network has picked up the miniseries. Filming began this week in China.

A quick check of his IMDB profile shows he recently finished filming the new National Lampoon's movie, called TV: The Movie, and another film called The Sensation of Sight. It looks as though Somerhalder has supporting roles in both those flicks.

(S07E21)  Yes once again, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for another SVU episode that involves children. It is the type of episode that makes you want to lock your children in a safe room until they are 30-years-old and a 12th-level black belt. Now that I have four children of my own I always get that creeping feeling up my spine when I see these episodes. Oh well, let's move along, shall we?

All in all it was a solid but dull episode with the main focal point on Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and his sexual abuse investigation of a 8-year-old boy. And, with the limited appearance of Detective Olivia Benson (the very pregnant Mariska Hargitay), who has moved into the Computer Crimes division, some of the secondary characters had meatier roles than normal. Namely, Detective Tutola (Ice-T), Dr. Huang (B.D. Wong) and Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU, the tech geeks) Morales (Joel De la Fuente), who actually beat up a perp in this episode. See? Don't mess around with us pencil-neck geeks: we're super-humanly strong.

 

So I'm doing the daily "What's On Tonight" post, and I see that The Sci-Fi Channel has three episodes of Law and Order: SVU on. Um ... can someone tell me why (and don't say it's because NBC owns the Sci-Fi Channel).

Is this a new show that has a similar title? Does the SVU actually stand for Space Visitation Unit? Is Mariska Hargitay an android?

"In outer space, the people of Earth are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the Space Visitation Unit, who investigate claims of alien visitors, and space attorneys, who prosecute the evil aliens. These are their stories."

As if having all the Law and Order shows on USA and TNT 90,000 times a week wasn't enough.