Law and Order: Special Rape Show - Why is it still on, and is it any good?

Sex crimes, sex crimes, sex crimes....they get old after this many years.

It's time for Benson to retire.

It was better back when they wrote original storylines, but now it's all ripped-from-the-headlines. It's all just blatant ripoffs of whatever's in the news that month.

They give u a good story.

The young vic got it right up his heinous!

"Sounds like we got a real sicko on our hands."

John Mulaney scratched the surface of how the use dialogue to explain to their elderly audiences how sex and technology work.

"So you're tellin' me this dude gets off on little girls with pigtails?"

"Hey, did you know one in five kids using a computer will interact with a sexual predator online?"

"The internet and smartphones just make it easier for pedophiles to find victims and each other."

This shit's like Reefer Madness, but with dicks instead of drugs.

I hate all the ripped from the headlines crap especially because they make sure to compare their crime to whatever they copped it from right down to explaining it in detail. Also it's disturbing to me how incredibly graphic theyve gotten and then asking children to recite these horrifying acts or act them out. It's just bizarre that anyone allows kids to do that.

It was a great show in the 2000s, but I haven't watched it in years. It was never the same after Chris Meloni left.

R9 He did his best work as the sociopathic power top in "Oz."

My mom called it Rape of The Week. She's alive but she stopped watching a few years ago. During #MeToo Olivia was very busy sympathizing with sluts who advertised for rough sex and later were sad.

They have recently broadened the story lines to include things only tangential to the sex crime. As Olivia and Elliot began - when I was in high school.

It's occasionally still worth watching for Kelli Giddish and the guy who plays Karesi. They aren't gonna win awards - though a lot of worse actors have. Remember when she fucked some guy while they were out on assignment? Karesi really likes Rollins. She's literal white trash and calls herself that. Ain't nothing wrong with the truth. Rising above your raising takes time. I dig her. Their love is going to prevail. Mariska should sleep with her one Emmy and hundreds of millions of dollars!

Olivia got the memo. Not every show can be about you or your kid or your soulful, expressionless empathy for rape victims. You're gonna still get paid almost as much as Dr. Grey and will further secure your title of longest running female TV character in history! Miss Kitty died of AIDS. Your real mother was decapitated. Elizabeth Ashley was fantastic. But your SUV show was BEST when Elliots ASS was there with you, along for the ride.

Everyone knows Mariska can't run, so she keeps begging for more episodes where you're held hostage, but always hand over your gun. She's never even been properly raped! Magically doesn't happen. Even when she's held captive for days by sadistic sexual psychopaths. She's a lucky genius.

It's still on Olivia. You and the equally enthralling Ice Tea should sit out more scenes. Turn more story lines over to the middle aged youngsters.

This show has been running so long that the reboot can run concurrently with the original.

John Mulaney...

R13 That small child looks ill!

It was originally titled "SEXUAL Victims Unit" and that was considered too salacious. What a joke. The original title fits.

It hasn’t been good since Alex Cabot “died” IMO.

R11 that post was a little hard to follow but still enjoyable. Good summary.

I can't stand Benson, especially when her precious Noah gets himself kidnapped. Isn't that brat kidnapped every other week? And, of course, when he is kidnapped, Olivia is the ONLY mother in the world who has suffered. And she barks at everyone to "FIND NOAH!!!!"

While the first run episodes on NBC don't do too great (though not real bad either) these days, It still does very well in syndication and streaming and that is why it's still on.

I stopped watching during Season 15, so I can't comment on the quality. I thought it was still fairly good then. But giving how much focus on Olivia and her kid, makes me glad I stopped when I did. I hated all the time devoted to Sabler and his family too, in earlier seasons.

Sabler was a tasty biscuit. Olibia is no longer losing her son every week - but she still doesn't have a kitchen.

SVU is one of the most egregious examples of "no way could these people afford these kinds of apartments in NYC" that is so common in tv and film. Even coffee shop waitresses live alone in big one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan.

There were some sexy gay-centered episodes.

Like the one where the gay investment banker was found tied up in leather gear, dead. And his secret boyfriend was a pro football player.

Or the one where the sexy cumdump couple were murdered by a gay vigilante because they supposedly spread Super-AIDS (not a real thing) to young barebackers.

Or the one where the sexy teen runs a kiddie-porn empire built around himself, and he gets abducted and tortured as punishment for seducing all those innocent pedos.

The body count at Hudson University could probably fill a stadium by now.

Years ago we had a "Let's Be Law and Order: SVU" thread that was hysterical.

R24 Start another one, homo! I love those "Let's Be A..." threads.

Sure as hell beats another fucking thread about Meghan Markle or Timothy Hutton!

It's horrible trash and has been for ages. I have no clue why anyone watches it. And the " shocking twists" are so bizarre and contrary to human nature they are laughable. Truly clever writers could think up twists that actually make fucking sense. A typical plot reveal will be an elderly woman being molested in a care home and the big bullshit twist is that another 90 year old woman is molesting her. I'm making this one up but you get the gist.

Done, r25! xoxo

Why is this show so obsessed with sex? Sick!

Robin WIlliams was a surprisingly good guest star. I was rooting for him to get away.

Agreed r26 some of the plots are outlandish.

It's a zombie show like SNL. People watch it to watch it.

Robin Williams was amazing. And I don't like him. Whoopi Goldberg was also very impressive just a few seasons ago. More than that - she was unexpected. Her expression and inner anger and pain were powerful. She went all the way in to the dark territory of neglect vs negligence = death and lying. Too long in a job. No compassion left.

The SVU of Mia and Woody's story was also very well done. They gave the time to the guest actors to create something special and provocative. It was not too kind to Mia.

And the girl (Sarah Hyland) from Modern Family was featured a few times as a guest star child actress. The first time when she was maybe 12 years old was fucking heartbreaking and mesmerizing. She's a very fine actress. It's a great episode.

Carol Burnett's episode was silly. She seemed out of place and the story was nnecessarily grotesque. But fun.

Ellen Burstyn as Elliot's mother.....won the Emmy Award she deserved for her two amazing guest spots. Meloni couldn't begin to match her in any scene or sense. Wisely he didn't have to do much but look angry or pensive. Burstyn was amazing.

The Original?

I like how most of the regulars got a start as vics or perps of the week in earlier seasons.

Casey raped a man!!! A good looking man too. With her friends. She was the ringleader.

Many years later, as D.A., she would be beaten to death.

Liza murdered a child. Not just in her personal life, but on the SVU show too.

Prior to joining the cast:

Giddish was a rape victim.

Scanavino was a murder suspect.

Yum, Scanavino.

Rape never gets old with women. Yes I said women.

The vast majority of search requests for rape porn are from women. Men don’t want to watch rape porn because their fantasy is the woman is craving their dick and can’t wait to get it.

The Cynthia Nixon episode where she had multiple personalities was good too.

[quote]Why is this show so obsessed with sex?

Because it was originally titled SEXUAL Victims Unit. Producers agreed to change the title of the show but all the stories were already centered on sex. The fear was that TV shows of this type would normalize sexual violence. And they do.

I stopped watching when Olivia got the kid.

Mariska apparently fired several crew members a few weeks ago because she’s been looking like shit on SVU but somehow better on Organized Crime.

Organized Crime sucks but I’m watching for Ellen Burstyn appearances. She’s fabulous.

Mariska has to admit that menopause hits some women harder in the face and ass.

You can't fire that.

What is Mariska like as a person?

There are very gaya on a sex show.

Say what you will about the franchise but it's kept Broadway actors employed for decades.

In one episode Mark-Paul Gosselaar was a bareback porn actor taking loads up the ass to support his wife and family. He looked good. The ep was hot.

Mariska’s an OK person from what my crew friend tells me. Friendly and personable but self-involved.

[quote]Organized Crime sucks

It really does. Stabler is getting away this week with idiot plotting that logically should end him up on Dr. Melinda Warner's autopsy table.

The person who keeps saying the original title was Sexual Victims Unit is wrong. It was originally Law and Order: Sex Crimes, which was a smart change because we wouldn’t be still talking about show called Sex Crimes a quarter century later.

Is the new season of Organized Crime bad? I tuned out last year because I hated the Big Bad storyline with The Practice but I was curious about checking it out now to see how the central storyline is. Can someone break it down quickly, who the characters are, and if it’s worth a look?

And I played Jaina Jansen, his porn star wife, r48!

Dick Wolf is a hack but Americans have a strange fetish for watching shows and movies about sordid violence. Rape is viewed as the worst thing ever and yet So many in this country seem to really enjoy hearing about it. So it's still on. Despite plot twists that make zero sense. And of course Olivia has a kid because no character on any show ever is permitted to be child free nowadays.

Yes, we are obsessed with rape in this country and I’d argue that the fuel towards #MeToo and the continued success of this show has fetishistic undertone.

I miss seasons 1 and 2, when Mariska was still gorgeous and Olivia would volunteer to go undercover as a hooker every 2 or 3 episodes

Don't forget the child molestation!

Rape obsessed and ignorance obsessed. Remember when Joclyn Elders, Surgeon General, was forced to resign for recommending masturbation? Would you ever imagine that one day weed would be more acceptable than jerking off?

It would be no different today. Worse. Deplorables would be shooting up school board meetings. Oh wait

There are a lot of sex crimes, not just rape. They need to go back and cover the whole spectrum.

Was The Chosen Child Noah kidnapped again this week?

Lwa and Order: Elder Abuse Bureau S1E1, Noah wheels Oleebia into The Pine Cones convalescent center. Noah has his son and daughter-in-law with him.

There was one episode of SVU with Jill Scott and the guy from The Blind Side.

Jill's character's sister was this opera singer who suddenly had MS. She couldn't speak, she couldn't walk and she couldn't take care of herself.

She apparently was raped when they found a pubic hair in her diaper. Rape of disabled, is nothing sacred on the show?

It's fine. It's not great television, but it's been on forever. It's like putting on an old jacket.

It's funny how much the core cast has shrunk to make up for a declining budget and Haritay's huge salary. Down to 4.

As long as hausfraus can get juicy in their hoohas and rub one out while watching, they'll keep it going.

My God... if only they could combine this with Grey's Anatomy. It would be on the air for decades and decades.

R48, that was literally the story of Chad Knight, who got a lot of attention at that time for being married with kids while being a bareback bottom in gay porn. I think he had four or five kids and one had health problems that were really expensive. He “retired” a couple of times and kept coming back, but he’s been gone for good for about ten years now.