Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 8)
| Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 8) | |
|---|---|
Season 8 U.S. DVD cover
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| Starring | |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 22 |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | September 19, 2006 – May 22, 2007 |
| Season chronology | |
The eighth season of the television series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered September 19, 2006 and ended May 22, 2007 on NBC. The series remained in its 10pm/9c Tuesday timeslot. With the introduction of a new partner for Detective Stabler, early episodes of season 8 took on a significantly different focus when compared to those of previous seasons.
The eighth season began filming when Mariska Hargitay was in the final stages of her pregnancy. As a result, two episodes "Informed" and "Scheherazade" made use of desks, folders, and headshots to disguise Benson's abdomen. "Informed" became the season premiere but "Scheherazade" was not incorporated into the plot until 2007. The episode "Burned" was directed by Eriq LaSalle who worked with Neal Baer and Mariska Hargitay on ER. He described the episode as "a compelling story with edgy performances."
When writing the episode "Responsible", Neal Baer stated that he referred to "an article about... how there's been leaps in terms of research about the effects of alcohol on teenage brains." Judith McCreary stated that information she used to write "Confrontation" came from a Google search; "I ran across a story about women who were raped more than once by the same guy and that made me wonder if his biological clock was ticking." Diane Neal joked about the writers' penchant for disturbing web searches saying "I'm sure a couple of the writers are on the feds' most wanted Internet predators list too, because they're doing all this research on pedophilia."
Judith McCreary also wrote the season finale "Screwed" during which illegal activities involving the detectives are brought up in the courtroom. She said "I wanted to explore chickens coming home to roost. A lot of shit these cops have been doing they haven't paid for. Benson committed a felony; she should've been kicked off the force and gone to prison."
During a six episode absence by Mariska Hargitay, Connie Nielsen was cast to play Stabler's temporary partner, Detective Dani Beck. Dick Wolf said that he was "thrilled that we have someone of Connie's obvious talent, beauty and stature to come in for these episodes. It doesn't get any better than this."
Chris "Ludacris" Bridges made his second on SVU in "Screwed" which concludes the seventh season episode "Venom". Neal Baer explained that he saw this episode as an opportunity to have Adam Beach's character, Detective Chester Lake, become a longer term addition to the show; "Chris causes Ice-T's character Fin major, major, major problems that go back many years. While everything is in disarray, SVU needs some extra hands and Adam's character is brought in to help out."
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