Detective Down, But Not Out /SPOILER ALERT!
Sunday, April 2, 2006
By VIRGINIA ROHAN
STAFF WRITER
What do you do when your lead actress is
expecting a baby, but it wouldn't make sense for her
character to also be pregnant?
You have her hold things in front of her growing
stomach -- laundry baskets, satchels or, in the case
of Mariska Hargitay's Detective Olivia Benson, big,
fat police files.
But what do you do when that actress takes time
off to have and enjoy her first child, separating
the central partners of NBC's hit, "Law & Order:
Special Victims Unit" -- one of TV's most popular
teams?
Now that's where things get really tricky.
"SVU" executive producer Neal Baer and his writers
have concocted a complicated strategy to accommodate
the temporary loss of Hargitay, 42, who's taking off
for Los Angeles, her hometown, to await the arrival
of a son, due June 21.
In addition to logistical challenges -- more on
that later -- Baer's plan necessitated some
tinkering with the detective partnership of
Hargitay's Benson and Chris Meloni's Elliot Stabler.
That story line goes into motion with this week's
powerful episode, "Fault." In it, Benson and Stabler
are hunting for a recently paroled serial pedophile
(Lou Diamond Phillips), who has murdered several
members of a family and run off with the two
youngest children. The partners eventually track him
to a New York bus terminal, and in the violent and
emotional showdown, Benson gets slashed. Stabler is
torn between coming to her aid and chasing after the
pedophile, who has the two kids in tow.
His decision -- and Benson's later hesitation at
another pivotal moment -- lead Stabler and Benson to
question if their deep mutual attachment may be
hindering their ability to do their jobs.
They are "very close. Maybe too close," Baer says,
during a recent phone chat.
Meloni elaborates: "I think it's going to expose
to each other their feelings for each other, and
more so to my character. My character has muted his
affections, or the depth of his feelings, for his
partner. So things are going to be shown. It's done
in a great way. It's an exposure of feelings, not a
true reveal."
The episode makes clear that these two love each
other, but what kind of love is it? As Meloni told
me at the show's start, "We asked Dick Wolf, 'Is
there going to be any kind of relationship between
us?' And he goes, 'I got one word for you:
"Moonlighting." ' And he walked away."
Different times
Back then, however, the characters' circumstances
were different. Stabler, a father of four, was
happily married to his high-school sweetheart. Now,
he's single and lonely. And Benson, still ambivalent
about having children, is unattached. And she
definitely seemed jealous when the newly separated
Benson paid too much attention to Dr. Rebecca
Hendrix (Mary Stuart Masterson), the
police-officer-turned-psychiatrist who sometimes
helps them with cases.
Has Wolf's credo changed?
"No," Meloni says firmly. "And I still think Dick
is very right about it. Then it becomes a different
show and a different way of telling a story. People
kind of connect to these characters almost like a
mom and dad, I think. Hey, you don't want to picture
your mom and dad having sex.
"It's almost on the level of symbolism -- [she's]
the nurturer, and [he's] the dad, who's going to
keep you safe and secure."
Nonetheless, "Fault" will leave viewers wondering
about the nature of Benson and Stabler's feelings
for each other. And Baer is coy on that matter.
"We'll leave that to the audience. I want to see
how the audience interprets it," he says.
The goal of this week's episode, Baer says, "was
to stir things up and get them back together, so
that they're really doing well together, and then
we'll really pull them apart," thus paving the way
for temporary replacements.
New faces.
Next month, Anthony Anderson, who played sound
engineer Key in "Hustle & Flow" and bad guy Antwon
Mitchell in FX's "The Shield," will briefly come
aboard as Stabler's new partner, Manuel Valdez. And
as previously announced, Connie Nielsen will do six
episodes as a warrant officer who gets paired with
Stabler. But she won't arrive until next fall.
"We're going to deal with how Connie and my
partnership evolved," Meloni says. "We're all on
board that it has to be different. She's different
than Mariska, obviously."
Hargitay, who is married to actor Peter Hermann,
finished her last pre-baby scenes on Monday.
"But she's already shot several of next year's
shows, and Mariska will still be on for the whole
rest of the season," Baer says.
To minimize Hargitay's absence, the cast has been
filming two episodes at once, called tandem-shooting
(or "tandemonium," as they jokingly dubbed it on the
set) -- a technique "SVU" generally uses (but more
sparingly) each year to get a jump on the following
season.
Inner conflicts
This year, there have been more showcase episodes
that spotlight specific cast members and reveal
their characters' inner conflicts. In last week's
powerful "Venom," for example, Ice-T's Detective
"Fin" Tutuola discovered a tragic secret hidden by
his ex-wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton). It came to light
when Fin's son became a suspect in a murder actually
committed by the troubled young man whom Fin had
always considered his "nephew" (played by Chris
"Ludicris" Bridges).
There was also one in which Hargitay frantically
tried to save a little girl who had dialed 911, and
another in which Stabler, struggling with a case
involving an abusive father, finally showed up on
the doorstep of the aforementioned Dr. Hendrix, the
comely shrink, and came clean about his own
difficult childhood.
"I was very happy about the script, and I was very
proud of the work," Meloni says. "For an actor, it
really was great, because the thing that you're
speaking of, where I have my confessional with Mary
Stuart Masterson, that was one whole act, so I got
to be onstage basically for 12 minutes as opposed to
2½ minutes. As an actor, I got to have highs and
lows, mountains and valleys.
"Neal Baer is always looking for a way to present
the material in a different way, whether it's
intercutting between two different interrogations,
fading from scenes, as opposed to the chunk-chunk
["L&O" trademark sound], using different lighting,
different film, writing the script differently. It's
keeping it a slightly different product, so viewers
can't become complacent."
Mid-June break.
"SVU," which is based in North Bergen, will take a
break in mid-June, then resume production on Season
8 in late September.
By VIRGINIA ROHAN
STAFF WRITER
What do you do when your lead actress is
expecting a baby, but it wouldn't make sense for her
character to also be pregnant?
You have her hold things in front of her growing
stomach -- laundry baskets, satchels or, in the case
of Mariska Hargitay's Detective Olivia Benson, big,
fat police files.
But what do you do when that actress takes time
off to have and enjoy her first child, separating
the central partners of NBC's hit, "Law & Order:
Special Victims Unit" -- one of TV's most popular
teams?
Now that's where things get really tricky.
"SVU" executive producer Neal Baer and his writers
have concocted a complicated strategy to accommodate
the temporary loss of Hargitay, 42, who's taking off
for Los Angeles, her hometown, to await the arrival
of a son, due June 21.
In addition to logistical challenges -- more on
that later -- Baer's plan necessitated some
tinkering with the detective partnership of
Hargitay's Benson and Chris Meloni's Elliot Stabler.
That story line goes into motion with this week's
powerful episode, "Fault." In it, Benson and Stabler
are hunting for a recently paroled serial pedophile
(Lou Diamond Phillips), who has murdered several
members of a family and run off with the two
youngest children. The partners eventually track him
to a New York bus terminal, and in the violent and
emotional showdown, Benson gets slashed. Stabler is
torn between coming to her aid and chasing after the
pedophile, who has the two kids in tow.
His decision -- and Benson's later hesitation at
another pivotal moment -- lead Stabler and Benson to
question if their deep mutual attachment may be
hindering their ability to do their jobs.
They are "very close. Maybe too close," Baer says,
during a recent phone chat.
Meloni elaborates: "I think it's going to expose
to each other their feelings for each other, and
more so to my character. My character has muted his
affections, or the depth of his feelings, for his
partner. So things are going to be shown. It's done
in a great way. It's an exposure of feelings, not a
true reveal."
The episode makes clear that these two love each
other, but what kind of love is it? As Meloni told
me at the show's start, "We asked Dick Wolf, 'Is
there going to be any kind of relationship between
us?' And he goes, 'I got one word for you:
"Moonlighting." ' And he walked away."
Different times
Back then, however, the characters' circumstances
were different. Stabler, a father of four, was
happily married to his high-school sweetheart. Now,
he's single and lonely. And Benson, still ambivalent
about having children, is unattached. And she
definitely seemed jealous when the newly separated
Benson paid too much attention to Dr. Rebecca
Hendrix (Mary Stuart Masterson), the
police-officer-turned-psychiatrist who sometimes
helps them with cases.
Has Wolf's credo changed?
"No," Meloni says firmly. "And I still think Dick
is very right about it. Then it becomes a different
show and a different way of telling a story. People
kind of connect to these characters almost like a
mom and dad, I think. Hey, you don't want to picture
your mom and dad having sex.
"It's almost on the level of symbolism -- [she's]
the nurturer, and [he's] the dad, who's going to
keep you safe and secure."
Nonetheless, "Fault" will leave viewers wondering
about the nature of Benson and Stabler's feelings
for each other. And Baer is coy on that matter.
"We'll leave that to the audience. I want to see
how the audience interprets it," he says.
The goal of this week's episode, Baer says, "was
to stir things up and get them back together, so
that they're really doing well together, and then
we'll really pull them apart," thus paving the way
for temporary replacements.
New faces.
Next month, Anthony Anderson, who played sound
engineer Key in "Hustle & Flow" and bad guy Antwon
Mitchell in FX's "The Shield," will briefly come
aboard as Stabler's new partner, Manuel Valdez. And
as previously announced, Connie Nielsen will do six
episodes as a warrant officer who gets paired with
Stabler. But she won't arrive until next fall.
"We're going to deal with how Connie and my
partnership evolved," Meloni says. "We're all on
board that it has to be different. She's different
than Mariska, obviously."
Hargitay, who is married to actor Peter Hermann,
finished her last pre-baby scenes on Monday.
"But she's already shot several of next year's
shows, and Mariska will still be on for the whole
rest of the season," Baer says.
To minimize Hargitay's absence, the cast has been
filming two episodes at once, called tandem-shooting
(or "tandemonium," as they jokingly dubbed it on the
set) -- a technique "SVU" generally uses (but more
sparingly) each year to get a jump on the following
season.
Inner conflicts
This year, there have been more showcase episodes
that spotlight specific cast members and reveal
their characters' inner conflicts. In last week's
powerful "Venom," for example, Ice-T's Detective
"Fin" Tutuola discovered a tragic secret hidden by
his ex-wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton). It came to light
when Fin's son became a suspect in a murder actually
committed by the troubled young man whom Fin had
always considered his "nephew" (played by Chris
"Ludicris" Bridges).
There was also one in which Hargitay frantically
tried to save a little girl who had dialed 911, and
another in which Stabler, struggling with a case
involving an abusive father, finally showed up on
the doorstep of the aforementioned Dr. Hendrix, the
comely shrink, and came clean about his own
difficult childhood.
"I was very happy about the script, and I was very
proud of the work," Meloni says. "For an actor, it
really was great, because the thing that you're
speaking of, where I have my confessional with Mary
Stuart Masterson, that was one whole act, so I got
to be onstage basically for 12 minutes as opposed to
2½ minutes. As an actor, I got to have highs and
lows, mountains and valleys.
"Neal Baer is always looking for a way to present
the material in a different way, whether it's
intercutting between two different interrogations,
fading from scenes, as opposed to the chunk-chunk
["L&O" trademark sound], using different lighting,
different film, writing the script differently. It's
keeping it a slightly different product, so viewers
can't become complacent."
Mid-June break.
"SVU," which is based in North Bergen, will take a
break in mid-June, then resume production on Season
8 in late September.