Friday, August 28, 2009

Law & Order SVU “Unstable” Episode Information Season Premiere

It’s a little less than a month away for the premiere of Law & Order SVU! NBC has released the episode information for this first episode of the new season titled “Unstable”:

Law & Order SVU “Unstable” Air Date September 23, 2009 SEASON PREMIERE

OFFICER NATE KENDALL (GUEST STAR WENTWORTH MILLER) IS CALLED IN TO HELP DETECTIVES OLIVIA BENSON (MARISKA HARGITAY) AND ELLIOT STABLER (CHRIS MELONI) SOLVE A SERIES OF RAPE CASES ALONG WITH EXECUTIVE ADA SONYA PAXTON (GUEST STAR CHRISTINE LAHTI).

Officer Nate Kendall (guest star Wentworth Miller) aids a woman in trouble and becomes roped into solving a rape case. While Detectives Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) believe that Kendall is not right for the case due to his unstable personality, Executive ADA Sonya Paxton (guest star Christine Lahti) joins the team, bringing evidence of a common thread among three other rape cases. With Paxton’s help, the team might expose a serial rapist. Also starring: Richard Belzer (Detective John Munch), Dann Florek (Captain Donald Cragen), Ice-T (Detective Odafin Tutuola), Tamara Tunie (Dr. Melinda Warner), and B.D. Wong (Dr. George Huang).

My recap and review of Law & Order SVU "Unstable" can be found here.

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10 comments:

John K. said...

So, Stabler and Benson don't want the character-of-the-day involved, because of his unstable personality? Oh, like they're the models of sanity. Oh, well, Wentworth Miller will make it worth it.

Good catch, and I'm sure word will spread about the synopsis, soon enough.

Anonymous said...

I'm assuming the instability is overt enough that their concern is referenced to their recent experiences with Stuckey. They said the ramifications from Zebras would continue into this season.

John K. said...

I'm sure you're right, but their current baseline characters don't scream "stability" to me. However, yes, the aftermath of "Zebras" will be a part of the mix, to be sure. Of course, whether it will continue into the season, that's another story.

Anonymous said...

The ramifications from "Zebras"? Apart from O'Halloran dying, everything else in that episode was too stupid to ever talk about or remember. I mean, how would you even reference that? "So, that CSU tech who went crazy and attacked the secondary recurring characters is in jail." "Huh." "Yeah." "Okay then." "Alright."

Anonymous said...

*heh* My statement comes from some of the description of the zebras ep, there were references to the ramifications of what happened in the ep and O'Halloran's death being felt well into this season.

In the past, they occasionally allude to the main characters' dealing with issues from past eps though they seem to use this as a temporary (and very convenient) device for the storyline in an episode. I'm guess the "ongoing ramifications" statements is meant to say that the main characters will actually show some sort of longer term impact (like real people).

That being said, I agree with you that zebras was total crap. As much as I like SVU, Meloni and Hargitay, I think the rest of the cast and the stories in the SVU franchise have been hurt by the very tight and personal focus on Elliot & Olivia. This is probably why it has more press and a stronger fanbase than the mothership. IMO SVU should expand storylines to broaden it's focus to include the other regulars (they are great characters) and the mothership should actually show a little more backstory for some of its characters (especially Cutter) to provide some more insight and make it a little more compelling. They should also have whoever wrote By Perjury, Skate or Die and The Drowned and the Saved write more eps.

Anonymous said...

Zebras was a train wreck and just plain awful. Based on the closing line from that episode and what I felt was an unfeeling response by Stabler and Benson to O'Halloran's death, I though these two characters hit rock bottom.

Personally, I think this show is catering too much to the Chris and Mariska fans, and it may be to the long term detriment of the show. If one or both of them leave, so may the droves of CM and MH fans that only watch the show to see these two people, not the actual stories. It's like the new version of soap operas, where fans tune in only to see their favorite characters and the storylines suck. Guess what" For all purposes, the soaps are dead. the dumbing down of SVU will ultimately kill the show.

Anonymous said...

I agree completely. SVU and L&O should both move to the center (although to me the problems with L&O aren't nearly as severe as the problems with the last seasons of SVU; we didn't know much about Stone, Schiff, and Robinette either, and they were pretty much strong characters anyway).

I'd also like to see more police and law procedural elements and less soap opera/superhero comic book antics (basically, more episodes like "Closure" and less like "Zebras" or that one where Robin Williams plays the Toyman from "Batman"). SVU has usually been good with the police aspects, decent on the law aspects (Cabot used to be a terrible prosecutor -- why'd they hire her back?) and it was a lot more enjoyable when they let all the characters have some real screen time and the backstory was woven in and played for comedy relief instead of high drama.

John K, said...

I'd rather they reference it than pretend it didn't exist (Alex continuity glitch, anyone? Which they finally addressed. Or Chester Lake's arrest?) Given the impact of a long time cast member, it's difficult to easily avoid it, yes. Although, I'm sure they'll pretend like it, as their way to cope. But don't yell at me for the sucky episode. Heh.

And I do agree with the final Anon commenter, for what it's worth.

Steve.paul said...

Keep up the good work Miller

Anonymous said...

i would like to see more munch and ice t munch brought alot of homicide fans over, and on L and O i would like them to let sisto and anderson use their skills those guys are real actors compaired to most, i would have to say anderson on the shield as antwain mitchel was one of the best villian performances ever, and sisto was great in ceaser and thirteen. let lupo and bernard take the show over for the 1st 35 mins and go into deaper stories that might go for 2 or 3 episodes then a big finish by cutter and rubirosa,
and i guess that svu reference about jack mccoy means he won.