special victims unit

(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.

(S08E15) Even though the disclaimer at the beginning of this episode said "The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event", we all know who L&O writers are taking a shot at here. It's Nancy "Everyone is Always Guilty" Grace of CNN. A few months back, she verbally attacked a mother on air and suggested the mother was the reason her child was missing. The mother committed suicide the next day.

In this episode, the baby disappeared from his crib as the mother (Laura) and boyfriend were playing charades with their friends. The mother immediately blamed her ex-husband, a gambler and alcoholic... and apparently a drug dealer. Stabler chases the ex-husband to the (Hudson?) river where the guy tosses a bag into the water. Stabler goes after it, assuming the baby is inside. But there's cocaine in it and the guy doesn't have a clue where his baby is.

(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.

(S01E13) How about that opening sequence? Before the credits, the entire cast gets to take a shot at a locomotive big guy on PCP. He throws Elliot through a window, knocks out a kid getting off the elevator and even takes a taser shot to the gut from Olivia before Fin takes him out with a chair to the back of the head. Anyway, the entire action sequence was a pretty elaborate way to write Christopher Meloni out of this week's script.

And, how unusual was this episode? The first 40 minutes had us thinking the detectives were investigating their usual child porn case, but then suddenly Olivia passes out?!? That's when the episode takes a turn from child porn to a much headier subject of chemical companies testing their products on humans. Wha? It took me a little while to catch up with the detectives as they spouted out their theories on why people in a low-income apartment building were being gassed. For a while there, I thought the theory was hair-brained and another of Det. Munch's theories. But it just kept going.

Lead actors Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have both agreed to stick around on Law & Order: SVU for two more seasons. It seems that money did the talking. Variety is reporting that both actors received about a $6.5 million raise for each year season. The publication says Hargitay is going to receive approximately $300,000-$340,000 per episode, pushing her up among the highest-paid female actors on television. Looks like baby August gets to go to private school!

Both actors had a hell of a lot of bargaining power in their contract negotiations. That show delivers consistently strong ratings for NBC and it absolutely would not be the same without Dets. Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler (Think: The X-Files without Mulder and Scully). Let's hope the network gives an incentive to keep Richard Belzer around, too.

SVU is currently in season 8, which means we're guaranteed seasons 9 and 10, which is exactly how long the sexual tension will last.

Richard Belzer doesn't seem to be getting much face time on SVU lately, so he's apparently finding other things to do. And thank goodness! He has his own 'channel', called Belzervizion, over at this new video website called Super Deluxe (same place where the Lost writers parody came from).

Belzervizion is quite funny-- for those of you who don't know, Richard Belzer is a comedian. He just happens to have played a cop on television for years. In the first episode, Belzer talks about how he helps co-star Ice-T with his rap music and Ice-T gives his own take on Belzer's musical skills (try not looking at Ice-T's wife's gigantic knockers- it's impossible!). It also includes a spoof on House, in which SVU co-star Diane Neal plays a role. Episode #2 spoofs 24 and has cameos from Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni. Everything seems to be shot on the SVU sets when they're not in use. Let's hope we can look forward to more Belzervizion!

Episode one of Belzervizion is after the jump (here's a link to episode #2):

(S08E11) Boy howdy, things sure are tense between Dets. Benson and Stabler. I thought their issues were in the past, but they never really can be, can they? Stabler immediately pushed Benson's buttons in this episode when he suggested that a man who is addicted to drugs and alcohol isn't technically abusive. Of course, Benson grew up with an alcoholic mother and she knows that abuse comes in many forms. Stabler knows that too, dammit, but he feels an obligation to side with the man in a nasty divorce case because his own divorce isn't going too well.

Now to the story: A woman, Valerie (Michael Michele), accuses her soon-to-be ex-husband of raping her. But it all seems fishy because she and her husband, Miles (Blair Underwood), are going through a nasty, nasty divorce. Their daughter, Tessa (Tiffany Evans), is in the middle of it.

(S08E10) This episode was all about Elliot's concern about growing apart from his daughters. The beginning of the episode shows Elliot in church with his fractured family and his middle child hating him very much. He is tipped off to an investigation from his priest, who heard the confession of a man dying of lung cancer. He won't tell Elliot what the confession was, but he suggests Elliot visits the man, named Judson Tierney (played by Brian Dennehy).

I had so much fun making this list last year that I decided to update it for 2006. Here's how it goes: I choose the five television characters I'd like to meet the mistletoe, if you get my drift. Several fellas have fallen off the list since last year, while new ones have been added. I learned a lot about myself while making this list: I basically go for guys who are emotionally injured or bad asses-- but only slightly bad ass, like Sawyer on Lost and not totally wacko like Tommy on Rescue Me.

Once again, my list is limited to male characters who are currently on television shows. So, for example, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Pacey Witter (Joshua Jackson) cannot be included. Leave your own list in comments!

5. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) Law & Order SVU How huggably soft is Elliot this season? He ended last season by practically falling head-over-heels in love with his partner, Olivia. When things started to get weird, she disappeared and he was left with a broken heart. Then, Dani came in and gave him hope. The barely got to make out before she left, too. Now he's nursing a broken heart and Olivia is back and everything is weird again. This guy definitely needs a little snuggle time under the mistletoe-- plus, did you notice his smokin' hot body in "Confrontation" earlier this season? Yowza.

The Mayor of Television (hey, they had an election for Mayor of Television? Why didn't anyone tell us??) has invented the Law and Order Fantasy League Game. Basically, you guess which "ripped from the headlines" story one of the Law and Order shows (the original, Criminal Intent, and Special Victims Unit) is going to ripoff write an homage to. Will it be Michael Richards? The O.J. Simpson book controversy?

But you can't just guess which show is going to do which plot and be done with it. You have to tweak it a little bit, so it's "original" (cough cough). So, maybe a former sitcom actor says some nasty racial remarks, only this time it's not at a comedy club, it's at a private party. Or maybe a former pro baseball star (not a football star! accused of killing his parents (not his ex-wife and her friend!) decides to create a web site (not publish a book!) showing pics of the murder scene and how he might have done it.

The Mayor's idea for a Michael Richards-inspired story is more elaborate than mine, and would fit the L&O world nicely.

[via TV Tattle]

(S08E09) I can't decide what I liked better about this episode-- Bob Saget or the return of Mariska Hargitay. Det. Olivia Benson comfortably slipped back in to being Det. Elliot Stabler's partner without much fanfare. No fanfare, really. She barely got a "Welcome Back" from Elliot. Casey was cold toward her, even though Olivia came back in time to help her get a conviction on a rape case. I think Det. Munch gave her the warmest reception. All these police types: bottling up their emotions! Sheesh!

(S01E08) Well, you guys were right about the way Connie Nielsen's character was going to exit the show. Det. Dani Beck has been getting increasingly upset over the victims of SVU cases and this week's case was just too much for her to handle. Pity. I was actually starting to enjoy her character, who started out as a reckless cop with bad judgment but ended as an emotional wreck with bad judgment.

NBC has announced a whole list of special guests for one upcoming episode of Law & Order: SVU. Bob Saget, Chris Sarandon, Catherine Bell and Bernadette Peters will all appear in the November 28th episode of SVU, called "Choreographed".

The case is about a woman found dead in Central Park. Sarandon plays her husband, Saget and Bell play the victims' friends, and Peters plays the defense attorney. There is a new episode of SVU tonight, and I believe it is Connie Nielsen's last episode.

(S01E07) First of all, check out the SVU homepage. Doesn't Stabler look freakishly larger than everyone else in the main photo? Second, are you as pissed off as I am about the NBC promos for this episode? They showed the scene where Stabler and Beck kiss and then they showed a shocked Benson. But in reality, those two scenes were far apart. I don't know about you guys, but I didn't pay close attention to the case because I was waiting for Benson to bust Beck and Stabler as they were making out. Never happened.

(S08E06) First of all, let me just say that the "eco-terrorists" have surprisingly good fashion sense. And access to showers. As someone who lives in Oregon, where we have real eco-terrorists, I kept having to chuckle at their portrayal on this episode of SVU. But enough of the nit-picky stuff... Mariska Hargitay is back!

After her maternity leave, Mariska looks amazing. I thought the writers came up with a great storyline to get Det. Olivia Benson out of her undercover gig. She got bored with the squeaky clean environmentalists she had infiltrated so she started investigating the murder of the head of a pharmaceuticals company when her friends are suspected of his death.