‘Law & Order: SVU’ spoilers: Season 17 with Mariska Hargitay, cast to start filming soon
The majority of network TV shows tend to follow the same rigorous pattern. They complete filming of their current season, and then promptly take a break for a few months. However, “Law & Order: SVU” does something a little different. Rather than start fresh in the summer, they choose to store at least two or three episodes in the bank before taking a long break. We do not know entirely why they do this, but we feel a big reason for it may just be to avoid some of the New York heat and take advantage of better filming conditions.
Last year, the plan was to film three episodes for season 16 in the spring before hiatus, but that was reportedly decreased down to two. Mariska Hargitay in particular was exhausted, as she had filmed 26 episodes at the time straight through in addition to doing benefits for her foundation, directing, and raising a family. There were not any episodes in the bank going into season 15, which created that unusual circumstance.
While we cannot confirm just how many episodes are being filmed for the new season at the moment, the writers room’s official Twitter has at least made it clear that filming for season 17 begins next week, and the cast has officially wrapped season 16 right now. Luckily, NBC renewed the show earlier enough to make this possible. While there is only 23 episodes this season (one less than usual), it probably still feels like 24 given all of the crossovers with “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago PD.”
Speaking of which, there is another crossover airing tonight! Remember that the “SVU” portion is airing an hour later than usual for story reasons at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
(Photo: NBC.)
Michael Goldman
May 7, 2015 @ 3:21 pm
It’s great to hear that SVU will be filming some Season 17 episodes before they take their well deserved break. Does that mean that NBC has made contract agreements with everybody? Are they filming these episodes and are being paid the same amount as their old contracts? Since all of their contracts(except for Mariska) expired at the end of season 16, do you think we could get a story on what the contract situations are, and if NBC is actually adding to the budget for the contracts for the first time in 4 years? Now that it seems that NBC will be dumping The Mysteries of Laura and State of Affairs, can they take some of the money that they were overpaying Katherine Heigl and Debra Messing with and give it to Kelli Giddish? Answers are always appreciated.