Law & Order: SVU Showrunner Announces His Exit In Emotional Post
The current Law & Order: SVU showrunner has posted a moving thread thanking the crew and fans of the series and announcing why he has decided to step down. The series, which was the first spin-off from the popular Dick Wolf legal procedural series Law & Order, premiered in 1999 and has now run for even longer than the original show. The series focuses on a «special victims unit,» which is a team from the NYPD that investigates sex-related crimes. The lead character on the series is Olivia Benson, played by Mariska Hargitay, though for many years she was co-leads with Christopher Meloni's Elliot Stabler, who has recently returned to the series as a crossover with his new spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime.
Law & Order: SVU season 23 is currently airing and is set to premiere its final episode on May 19, 2022. During the two decades plus that the show has been on the air, it has been overseen by a revolving door of showrunners. Of the six people who have helmed the series, the longest-running has been Neal Baer, a pediatrician and writer who was on the series from season 2 through season 12. The second-longest-serving showrunner is the series' current lead Leight, who has guided SVU from seasons 13 through 17, taking a hiatus before returning for seasons 21 through 23. In the meantime, he co-created Organized Crime, which may explain its close crossover relationship with SVU.
Related: Stabler’s SVU Tragedy Makes A Benson Romance More Likely
On his official Twitter account, Leight posted an emotional seven-tweet thread announcing his departure from the series after wrapping on season 23. He has described his two years of running the series during the COVID-19 pandemic as "arduous," detailing the constant stress of cast
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