Thoughts on Fourteen Seasons of Law and Order: SVU

So I'm one of those people who goes on TV binges.  Since I really discovered the availability of all things on the internet when I first got my own personal computer upon leaving for college, I have had certain shows that I watch every episode of in an extremely short time span.  Examples of past binge shows include: Lost (the first one), Bones, Castle, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and, of course, Arrested Development.

My most recent true love in TV show form was Law and Order: SVU.  I'm not sure why I love this so much, but I have a major girl-crush on Olivia Benson, who is super bad-ass.  I had been watching SVU on Hulu as each episode came out for the past year or so, but recently I became much more into it.  I started my obsession with season 7, and then I kind of expanded from there, finishing with season 1 a few days ago.  It took me a number of months to get through, but here I am now, with a void where Law and Order: SVU used to be.  So in honor of my months of watching and their years of filming, here are some superlatives for my most recent favorite show:

Best Episode: "911" (Season 7, Episode 3)  This episode is amazing.  I was spellbound the entire time.  In it, Olivia is about to leave the office for a night out, when a 911 call arrives from a little girl who has been imprisoned, but doesn't know where she is or who her captor is.  The entire episode takes place in the SVU squad room as the team tries to find the girl.  Absolutely incredible.

Best Season: Season 8.  I feel like in this season, the SVU writers really hit their stride.  My favorite is in this season, and Benson and Stabler are working really well together.  And the writing is just so amazing.  I was on the edge of my seat (or my bed, as the case may be) for every episode!

Favorite character:  Casey Novak.  Even though Olivia Benson is quite awesome, Casey is even better. She is so strong-willed and doesn't care about anything except justice. I was crushed when she left the show.  She was there from seasons 5-9 and 12-13.  Interestingly, the same actress (Diane Neal) also makes a cameo earlier in the series ("Ridicule", Season 3 Episode 10).  Since at this point I was watching the seasons in backwards chronological order, it was great to see her again! I wish she would come back in season 14 or 15 to being as present as she was in the earlier seasons.

Most similar looking after 14 years: Captain Cragen (Dann Florek) Just look at the man! It could have been a few years between filming these two screenshots, but fourteen?!? (Sorry for the blurriness - I wanted to make sure I was getting picture from the correct seasons so I had to take screenshots instead of Google Imaging it. Also, let me just note that in the process of watching these hundreds of episodes, I learned that video quality has greatly improved since 1999.)

Until next time!

Lauren