Review
When I am communicating with other people interested in crime series it is remarkable how many people seem to watch either CSI or CSI Miami or both. Rarely (actually never) have I heard talk about this show unless I brought it up myself and ended up discussing it with them. Of course I do not know the situation in America and other countries regarding this show but I feel it is very underrated in the Netherlands. Of course this has a lot to do with its programming spot. While CSI is usually on Saturdays at 830 or 930 p.m. and CSI Miami on Tuesdays at 830 p.m. SVUs spot has been Sundays around 11p.m. for quite some time now. Thats hardly what I call a prime time spot. Just to compare I looked up the shares of those 3 shows on the internet. CSI has a share of 26 in the US and 175 in the Netherlands. For CSIMiami these numbers are 150 and 132 and for SVU they are 170 and 77. This doesnt mean much but once bring the number of households into it it gets a lot clearer. CSI has about 186 million viewers in the US while CSIMiami and SVU have 105 and 119 viewers respectively. In the Netherlands these figures are 1175 million 910 thousand and 370 thousand. This means that SVU has less than onethird of the viewers CSI has and MUCH less than half the viewers CSI Miami has. In America SVU has twothirds of the viewers of CSI and about 10% more than CSIMiami. In my opinion this has a lot to do with the extremely bad programming spot SVU has gained in the Netherlands and the fact that the program is not advertised as vigorously as the two CSIs for I feel it cannot have anything to do with its quality.
The thing that makes SVU stand out so much in opinion is that the stories depicted are very realistic and heart felt. I personally appreciate it very much that there are no cheap attempts to make you cry by extending dramatic scenes or underscoring them with sad music. Mostly the sad parts happen quite suddenly and are relatively short. Maybe thats just another trick to get you to cry without being as obvious as many soap operas. TO me though it makes the stories appeal much more lifelike and truly gutwrenching and sad.
Also all of the characters are good. If you watch long enough you can get bits and pieces of information on everyone of them thus discovering what makes them tick. I must admit that the series has changes its emphasis a bit in recent years. In the first year there were numerous episodes that featured themes or events from the investigators home environment (especially Stablers). This trend has somewhat diminished over the years yet you can still see each individuals background shining through into their work ethics. One thin I really had to get used to was Richard Belzers (Det. John Munch) role getting smaller. It seems to me that in the first few years of the series he was present much more and he made much more cynical remarks something I really enjoyed. But overall the series has not changed for the worse for I feel it has actually improved. While a few years ago Id given this series an 8 out of 10 Im much more inclined now to rate it even higher. What Ive come to appreciate these last 2 or three years were the additions of IceT (Det. Fin Tutuola) B.D. Wong (Dr. George Huang) and Stephanie March (A.D.A. Alex Cabbot) to the team. Stephanie Marchs character provides the viewer not only with an insight to what the D.As job is but her involvement in the series also shows what difficult decisions need to be made at times when the victim becomes the pursued or when a suspect cannot legally be brought to justice. Huangs intense involvement lately is in my opinion the biggest and best evolution the series has undergone (up until now). Not only because there have been few if any series which placed the work of the forensic psychiatrist is in the spotlight but also it is much more realistic than for instance the medias depiction of profilers in The Silence of the Lambs or the TVseries Profiler. Also I think it is good (in addition to being very interesting) to show the public that not every offender is purely bad but there is often much more when you go beyond the surface. As for IceTs character I think he really completes the mix in the show as the tough street cop. Him and Belzer are an ideal couple just like Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni).
The reasons I personally feel SVU is the best crime series on the tube at the moment are easily summarized. It has very much diversity it offers insight into the psyches of both victims and perpetrators and it is realistic in every aspect.
9 out of 10