Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 11
Season 11 moved to Wednesdays and added two episodes.
Quick Facts
- Season number
- 11
- Starring
- Christopher Meloni
- Mariska Hargitay
- Richard Belzer
- Ice-T
- BD Wong
- Tamara Tunie
- Dann Florek
- Stephanie March
- Episodes
- 24
- Network
- NBC
- First aired
- 23 September 2009
- Last aired
- 19 May 2010
Facts from the source article.
Production
Joining the writing team that season was Mick Betancourt, a longtime admirer of the series. He explained that his goal was to craft episodes that could hold their own alongside the ones that originally drew him in. Betancourt also touched on fan fiction, noting that network policy prevents him from accepting unsolicited material due to legal concerns. Around the same time, cast and crew members started using Twitter to offer glimpses behind the scenes. Betancourt felt this helped bridge a gap between the show and its audience, giving fans more direct access than they had before. The season’s fifth installment, "Hardwired," became notable for officially confirming that BD Wong’s character, George Huang, is gay. Showrunner Neal Baer played down the significance, stating that the writers had always seen him that way and had never avoided the implication, though it rarely came up at work unless the story called for it. The revelation occurred when characters in the episode compared the push for adult-child sexual relationships to the persecution of homosexuals. Baer described the episode as exploring whether pedophilia is hardwired, clarifying that while the show does not side with offenders, it does entertain the idea that the impulse may be innate and asks what society should do about it. Season 11 marked the final full season filmed in New Jersey.
Cast changes and returning characters
During negotiations for a new contract the duo attempted to go after back-end profits. NBC threatened to replace Hargitay and Meloni if "they persist in their demands for more money." After two months of negotiations Meloni and Hargitay opted to renew their contracts for two more seasons. Christine Lahti played the new executive assistant district attorney, Sonya Paxton, for five episodes, starting with the first episode through to the fourth episode. She returned briefly in the eighth episode, where she clashed with Cabot. Neal Baer said "She's from Appeals and she's tired of having rape cases overturned because of misidentifications. She's coming to clean things up." Stephanie March returned temporarily for 9 episodes starting with the fifth episode playing ADA Alexandra Cabot, while SVU attempted to find a permanent ADA. Sharon Stone joined the cast in the twenty-first episode "Torch" on April 28. She played Jo Marlowe, the new assistant district attorney for a four-episode arc. SVU executive producer Baer described her character as "a funny adrenaline junkie who loves to be in the middle of everything and shares a past with Stabler. She's been married before and has a lot of secrets." She began filming her scenes in March. Her performances were not well received by television critics. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly concluded her first episode as "an episode filled with such clunky dialogue and improbable details that by the end, she seemed like a 'special victim' herself."
Cast
Sam Waterston as District Attorney Jack McCoy. Wentworth Miller guest starred in the first episode as a police officer named Nate Kendall, who saves a rape victim at the beginning of the episode and helps SVU solve the case. In the second episode Eric McCormack played the CEO of a "sugar daddy" dating website named Vance Shepard. Scott Foley played a real-estate developer with severe alcoholism in the fourth episode "Hammered." He said that the interesting role attracted him to the show with: "the character was fully developed with addictions and problems both personally and professionally. Plus... it's SVU, come on!" His character is suspected of murdering an abortion doctor. After saying that he has no strong opinion on the issue in an interrogation room scene, Detective Tutuola tries to provoke a response by shouting "are you pro-choice or no choice?" Justine Ezarik played a teenage girl in "Users" who dies just as a friend leaves to meet her. Ezarik blogged that "I know, it's sad that I'm dead but I had a great time dying!" She also posted two videos about certain details in the production of her episode. They reveal, for example, that she did not have to type on the iPhone when her character sends a text message. The typing animation was pre-rendered and designed in Keynote. In the tenth episode, John Larroquette played Randall Carver, an attorney defending a man accused of murdering children of illegal aliens. In the episode, the character was asked by Ice-T's character, Detective Tutuola, why he was defending such a man, to which he replied "It's a symptom, not the disease." and went on to say "Garrison, Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, all of them. They're like a cancer spreading ignorance and hate. I mean, they have convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system." Bill O'Reilly took offense and stated on his show that he was outraged by Dick Wolf's using his name in such a "defamatory manner" and called it "outrageous." He went on to say that "Dick Wolf is a coward for putting it out there."
Frequently Asked Questions
Who stars in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 11?
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 11 stars Christopher Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer, Ice-T, BD Wong, Tamara Tunie, Dann Florek and Stephanie March.
How many episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 11 are there?
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 11 has 24 episodes.
More in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Seasons
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