Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Also known as	Law & Order: SVU SVU
Genre	Police procedural Legal drama
Created by	Dick Wolf
Starring	Christopher Meloni Mariska Hargitay Richard Belzer Dann Florek Michelle Hurd Stephanie March Ice-T B. D. Wong Diane Neal Tamara Tunie Adam Beach Michaela McManus Danny Pino Kelli Giddish Raúl Esparza Peter Scanavino
Opening theme	Theme of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Composer(s)	Mike Post
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	18
No. of episodes	398 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Dick Wolf Peter Jankowski (season 2–) Ted Kotcheff (seasons 2–13) Julie Martin (seasons 14–) Michael Smith (season 14) Jonathan Starch (season 15–) Arthur W. Forney (season 17–) Mariska Hargitay (season 18–) Show runners: Robert Palm (season 1) David J. Burke (season 2) Neal Baer (seasons 2–12) Warren Leight (seasons 13–17) Rick Eid (season 18–present)
Running time	40–44 minutes
Production company(s)	Wolf Films Studios USA (1999–2002) Universal Television (2002–04, 2011–present) NBC Universal Television Studio (2004–07) Universal Media Studios (2007–11)
Distributor	NBCUniversal Television Distribution
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	NTSC (480i) HDTV 1080i
Original release	September 20, 1999 (1999-09-20) – present
Chronology
Related shows	Law & Order franchise Homicide: Life on the Street Conviction
External links
Website

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (often abbreviated to Law & Order: SVU or just SVU) is an American police procedural, legal, crime drama television series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced. In the style of the original Law & Order, episodes are often "ripped from the headlines" or loosely based on real crimes that have received media attention. Created and produced by Dick Wolf, the series premiered on NBC on September 20, 1999, as the second series in Wolf's successful Law & Order franchise. The show began its 18th season on September 21, 2016, and has aired 398 original episodes as of January 18, 2017. It is the current longest running scripted non-animated U.S. primetime TV series since the cancellation of the original Law & Order in 2010 and is the fourth-longest running scripted U.S. primetime TV series on a major broadcast network.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit originally centered almost exclusively on the detectives of the Special Victims Unit in a fictional version of the 16th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. As the series progressed, additional supporting characters were added as allies of the detectives in the New York County Manhattan District Attorney's office (known as advisers from the Sex Crimes Bureau) and the Medical Examiner's office. Certain episodes will go into detail about detective's personal lives and how they may or may not tie into the crimes dealt with during the show. Typical episodes follow the detectives and their colleagues as they investigate and prosecute sexually based offenses. The show starred Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler and Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson for its first twelve seasons until the former left the cast, unable to come to an agreement on his contract.

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