The time has come forLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Season 26 to roll to a close. The season finale premieres next week, May 15, on NBC. The promo released for the season finale finds Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and her team on the trail of a serial killer targeting psychiatrists. From the promo, it seems that by the time they’ve caught on to the pattern there are already three victims. A look at the Season 26 finale comes hours afterthe official renewal ofLaw & Order: SVUfor a landmark Season 27. With the official renewal, the show is now the longest-running prime-time live action series in the U.S. SVU holds the title heading into the fall.Law & OrderandSVUare not the only Dick Wolf procedurals confirmed for their next seasons on NBC:Chicago P.D.,Med, andFire, nicknamed One Chicago, were all renewed.
The season is the first full-length season after its landmark 25th season was shortened due to the strikes in 2023. A bit of a bumpy season, with episode ratings often falling behind the originalLaw & Order. One of the stronger episodes was of course, the highly anticipated crossover between the mothership andSVU.The crossover “Play With Fire"called back to anold episode of SVU, “911,“when a victim Olivia had saved as a child, was murdered while undercover, now grown up.
‘Law & Order: SVU’ Enters Historic New Season With a New Showrunner
Last month, it was annoucned that for Season 27, a new showrunner would be coming in.For the first time in the series' more than two-and-a-half-decade-long history, the show will have a female showrunner.Michele Fazekasis not a stranger to series, contributing as a writer and executive producer throughout seasons 3 through 7. In total, Fazekas is credited as a writer on 25 episodes of SVU,including episodes such as “Fault.“While it’s not clear ifDavid Graziano, who has been the showrunner for the last three seasons, will stay on as a writer when he steps down in Season 27, Fazekas will still have the room to breathe new life into the show.
Fazekas has her work cut out for her, with the aforementioned issues with ratings, and the common fan complaints that there were an astonishing lack of personal scenes with the characters in this season in particular. When the show was renewed for Season 27, it came the same week as the announcement of thedeparture of two series regulars:Juliana MartinezandOctavio Pisano. It’s unclear why the two are departing the series, but if the goal is to say, eventually shift the focus back onto Hargitay’s Captain Benson,bring her son, Noah (Ryan Buggle) on more often, maybe there is hope for more personal scenes in Season 27.
you may watch past episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit now on Peacock. Stay with Collider for the latest updates.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
