Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Unofficial Companion Read Free

assigned to protect the public from predators.
    Also, this was a task that required skilled writers who understand the legal and moral dilemmas that can surface in such cases. The same qualities are necessary in episode directors. They must elicit stellar performances—frequently from very young guest stars—that delve into some terribly grim subjects.
    Luckily, SVU has been able to benefit from the longevity of the original Law & Order , affectionately referred to as “The Mother Ship.” That excellent track record helped persuade the studio and the network to take a chance on a show with an even bleaker topical sensibility. This was sure to be drama in which ripped-from-the-headlines tended to rip out the viewer’s heart.
    Like all Law & Order shows, (most of) the producers, writers, and editors work in Los Angeles, while the actors and crew shoot in New York—Dick Wolf’s hometown and a city with unique personalities, cultural attractions, architecture, and events that fascinate people the world over. The Big Apple has inspired many of the greatest poems, books, plays, and movies, while continuing to nurture artists who call it home.
    Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s magnificent Central Park alone gives citizens a breath of fresh air and SVU writers acres of ideal locations. Their imaginations also swim in the Hudson and East rivers. In all five boroughs, neighborhoods can either glitter enticingly or represent urban decay. Everything needed is within reach, often a few subway stops away.
    New York is also a place always struggling with how to keep 8 million residents and an untold number of visitors safe. On a daily basis, the NYPD encounters staggering calamities that would undoubtedly make the ordinary person cringe with horror.
    Periodically, there are cops who think they’re above the law. SVU unflinchingly scrutinizes that type of miscalculation, as well as the infamous “blue wall of silence” in which loyalty trumps legality.
    Although Wolf wants the series to shed light on sexual maladjustment, nobody can say for sure what makes “perps”—as perpetrators are routinely called on the show—tick. The human mind remains a mystery that no one can afford to stop trying to unravel.
    But this blight on a citizen’s right to live a peaceful life is a cause television should champion. SVU attempts to accomplish that in the most caring way possible, without unnecessary prurience.
    The series also contributes to the civic discourse essential for communities working together to find a solution . . . or a remedy. Executive producer and showrunner Neal Baer is a physician who specializes in pediatrics. So it’s no accident that he infuses SVU with a desire to cure this world of its ills.
    On the other hand, Baer also is a brilliant storyteller. And that’s what makes the show so remarkable: With his guidance, the great yarns that are spun provide a compelling platform for the difficult themes that plague us all.
    Make-believe has rarely seemed so real.

Rounding up the Brain Trust
    Television screens may have gotten a little bit brighter when veteran film director Ted Kotcheff was recruited to work on SVU a decade ago. Despite a love of motion pictures, the medium that kept him busy from the early 1960s through the late 1990s, he was amenable to a professional detour when Dick Wolf beckoned.
    “I was supposed to do a big film about Hitler, one of the two major obsessions of my life: Hitler and Shakespeare,” recounts Kotcheff, a gifted raconteur. “We were looking for locations when it fell though at the very last second.” The Third Reich and the Bard would just have to wait.
    His agent told him about a new Law & Order series in the offing. “So I met Dick and we liked each other. We have the same sense of humor. I asked to see a script. If I was going to work in TV, I didn’t want to do the same old thing. But it seemed as if SVU went into areas no show had gone before. It was breaking new