(Review originally written at 7 May 2005)
This spin-off of "Law & Order" is extremely solid and every episode is always a pleasure to watch.
The show is about a new elite squad of NYPD detectives who investigate sexually oriented crimes. So you would kind of expect that ever episode would be the same; someone gets raped and the SVU is send out to solve it. This however is not the case, every episode is extremely original. Kudos to that! OK so maybe the stories are pretty far fetched at times but that doesn't take away any of the quality of the show.
Only real complaint I have about the series is that it misses a good solid main character. "Law & Order" had Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" has Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) but "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" doesn't have a good solid leading character. Neither Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) or Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) are interesting enough. Best characters are the ones that always play the smaller roles such as; Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), John Munch (Richard Belzer, that guy has got style! Hard to believe he is well over 60 years old already.) and Odafin "Fin" Tutuola (Ice-T). At first I didn't really liked Ice-T in this, I don't know for some reason he seemed nervous about acting in this to me but he now often gives away a very solid performance. The B.D. Wong character Dr. George Huang is a bit of a weird one to me, he is an all knowing character that truly knows everything and always has an answer and an opinion ready. He feels like a kind of unrealistic character to me, even though I really always have liked B.D. Wong as an actor. I'm also glad Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March) got replaced by ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), she is a way better character!
The show is very likable to watch. The guest appearances are like in all "Law & Order" series, always top-class and the fact that the show lacks a good main character doesn't take away any of the quality of the show.
8/10
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