In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the “special victims unit.” These are their stories.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is another spin-off from the original Law & Order series that debuted in 1990. While the original deals with numerous subjects and Criminal Intent deals with the criminal justice system, SVU goes down the road of sexually-based crimes. Often time they also deal with crimes against children which obviously hit home hard for many people. Detectives Elliott Stabler and Olivia Benson are the main focus of the series and are usually joined by a team of other detectives, doctors, and a district attorney. Together they all aim to work with one another and make sure these crimes are solved and the offenders are brought to justice to get what they deserve.
If you’ve never seen SVU before then be warned: the subject matter of these episodes may be quite unsettling to some. The cases deal with everything from rape to domestic abuse to pedophilia to even incest which may not sit well with a lot of people. While all of those topics are disturbing in their own way, it’s nice seeing them brought to the forefront of a series which is viewed by millions of people every week. Perhaps the focus on these crimes can make people more aware and have them look for more warning signs in case they ever suspect something like those are happening to people close to them or even themselves without their realization.
One of the better things about SVU and also Criminal Intent is that the series’ total focus isn’t just on the cases the detectives are dealing with. Those detectives in the spotlight are shown while on the job and after they go home. The demons rolling around in their head when a particular case becomes too personal are shown as well as any happiness or problems that are existent in their family lives. With Criminal Intent, we know so much about Goren’s life that it is evident in his work when someone pushes him. While SVU gives a lot of background on both Stabler and Benson, it’s Stabler’s life that seems to be in the most turmoil. He has a haggle of children who are growing up before his very eyes and a relationship with his wife that becomes rather strained at times. The problems in Stabler’s marriage really hit a low point in this season as he is finally at the point of divorce with his wife and it adds a lot of added stress on top of what he is already shouldering. Not very easy to concentrate on bringing a rapist to justice when you’re not even sure how the evening will be when you arrive home.
Season eight of SVU is just insane and over-the-top thrilling from the first moment of episode one to the final second of the season finale “Screwed.” A few of the interesting plot points that fans who may have missed this season and are playing catch-up may want to familiarize themselves with: Benson ends up helping out an FBI informant who has gone undercover and actually takes over the investigation for the FBI herself; Benson gets a temporary replacement partner named Dani Beck who comes and goes before getting to know much more about her then a quick history lesson; former professional wrestler and football player Bill Goldberg guest stars in the episode entitled “Loophole” in a very intense and awesome role; Benson does return to SVU after a while to team right back up with Stabler but things are kind of weird at first; and that is your main entrees for the time at hand. Trust me there is plenty more to go through, but that’s what running storylines we have as season eight rolls on and it adds some fantastic drama and tension to an already awesome series.
Benson becomes a true focal point during this season even though she spends a lot of time away from SVU because we get to see a different side of her even though the past few years have made us think she’s as open as a book. Her time with the FBI really opens her eyes even more so then usual and kind of gives her a different view on life that almost makes her a stranger to Stabler upon her return and strains their partnership some. While Benson is a great character; it’s always been Stabler who has intrigued me more with his sheer intensity and facial expressions that would make you wet yourself if he ever gave you one and meant it. The guy screams “seriousness” from every movement he makes and every word he speaks, but this just wasn’t his season to be in the spotlight. Trust me though, he has plenty going on.
“Loophole” is only one of my favorite episodes from this season and Goldberg being in it does help that a lot because of my wrestling fascination. “Philadelphia,” “Pretend,” and “Sin” are three more of my absolute favorites, but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t good. Season eight of SVU begins with a shot, rides it through, and ends with another bang making one of the hottest shows on television continue down it’s fiery path.
Episodes
Disc One:
Informed: When an eco-terrorist working undercover is raped and beaten, it takes the FBI and SVU squad working together to investigate the girl and her conflicted loyalties.
Clock: A teenage girl who looks like a child disappears during a school field trip, and the investigation takes a chilling turn when the lead suspect is someone no one expected.
Recall: Stabler and Beck seem to have all the pieces to end the 40-year crime spree of a rapist, but Beck must convince one last person from her past to testify or let the man go free.
Uncle: A mother and daughter are brutally raped and killed, and the main suspect turns out to be a homeless man – who is also Munch’s uncle.
Disc Two:
Confrontation: Stabler worries that his new partner is getting too emotionally involved with the victims in her cases, especially in the most recent attack by a serial rapist.
Infiltrated: During her continuing undercover investigation of an eco-terrorist group, Benson learns that the group is also suspected of being involved in the gruesome murder of a pedophile.
Underbelly: Stabler and Beck discover three teen murder victims with similar pawprint tattoos, but no one expects the trail to lead them from a home for girls to the territory of a double-dealing pimp.
Cage: Detective Beck thinks she may be in over her head when she becomes attached to a young girl from a foster home, and then the case turns up the mysterious death of yet another child.
Choreographed: Stabler and Benson are searching for proof-positive in the case of a model who died under mysterious circumstances, but nothing is clear when a suspect is linked to one of their friends.
Disc Three:
Scheherezade: A terminal cancer patient has a tale he’s dying to tell, so Benson and Stabler are in a race against time to get his confession before it’s too late.
Burned: Benson and Stabler find themselves on opposite sides of a he-said/she-said case when a woman accuses her soon-to-be-ex-husband of breaking into her home and raping her.
Outsider: Tutuola reluctantly teams up with a headstrong Brooklyn detective to catch a serial rapist after his son’s friend is attacked.
Loophole: Anonymous photos of a young boy lead the detectives to a suspected child pornographer, but when Benson takes ill, they begin to suspect that the man is involved in even more crimes than previously thought.
Dependent: Stabler crosses into dangerous territory when he puts everything in jeopardy to get information from a confused young woman whose mother was in a traumatizing attack.
Disc Four:
Haystack: A baby is missing and the mother is suspected, but when she kills herself and the baby turns up safe, the biological father comes under suspicion.
Philadelphia: While the detectives search for a rapist in Central Park, Benson puts her job on the line to find her long-lost brother and get the answers to disturbing memories from her past.
Sin: A successful and charismatic preacher confesses to the murder of a gay prostitute, but the case becomes anything but black-and-white when his wife provides the investigators with another viable suspect.
Responsible: Teenage drinking turns deadly when an honor student dies at a party, and an unlikely suspect is found to be the underage partiers” alcohol supplier and accomplice.
Disc Five:
Florida: Benson’s newfound half-brother returns and wreaks havoc on her personal and professional life while threatening to reveal more damaging family secrets.
Annihilated: A young woman about to be married to a CIA agent is raped and murdered, and the investigation forces Stabler to confront some realities about his own family life.
Pretend: A filmed extreme wrestling fight gets violently out of hand when one of the teen participants is accidentally killed, but the detectives suspect that the real crime wasn’t caught on film.
Screwed: Detective Tutuola’s stepson, Darius Parker, is on trial for the brutal murder of Nina Stansfield, and the SVU’s reputation is on the line as Benson and Stabler are served to testify for the defense.
The episodes are shown in 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and most everything looks pretty good, but it is evident at times that the transfer to DVD was not totally clean. Some small amounts of grain and faded colors show up momentarily from time to time, but nothing too obvious.
The episodes are heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and each episode sounds like it does when watching it air on television. All dialogue can be heard clearly and that is most important here because that’s about all you’re going to hear in this series except for the occasional gunshot or banging of a judge’s gavel.
None.
SVU continues to roll on and keeps getting better with every single season. Seriously, it’s closing in on Criminal Intent and getting ready to knock it out of the top spot of crime dramas. Although NCIS and CSI: New York are threatening too and that wouldn’t happen if Goren and Eames were on every episode each season. Anyway, season eight of SVU is excellent throughout and has so many great episodes that you’ll want to check out over and over again. No special features again but we’ve kind of gotten used to that with this and most television series. Still, it’s the episodes you want and excellence is what you get with those. Amazing how much rape cases and child crimes can draw a huge audience to a show like this, but let’s hope that it’s the solving of those cases by such a cool crew of detectives that keep people coming back for more.
………………………………………
Universal Studios presents Law & Order Special Victims Units: Year 8. Created by: Dick Wolf. Starring: Christopher Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer, Ice T, B.D. Wong, and more. Running time: 934 minutes on 5 discs. Rating: Not Rated. Released on DVD: February 17, 2009. Available at Amazon.com
