TV Madness 2019: Law & Order: SVU, Suits, & a round 1 showdown

TV Madness 2019 is officially upon us! March is one of our favorite times of the year for many reasons — spring is in the air, the days are getting longer, and the idea of a bracket is a part of our pop-culture lexicon. TV Madness is CarterMatt’s version of March Madness, where a number of fantastic shows from across the map face off against each other. There are seedings, head-to-head showdowns, and the performance of each show is based entirely on you, the reader.

In this article, round 1 is going to be shaken up by a pair of long-running legal shows. With Law & Order: SVU, you got a long-running cultural icon that manages to combine both a police procedural and a courtroom drama into the same hour week after week. Meanwhile, with Suits you have an excellent character-driven story where, despite their professions, the lawyers often manage to avoid being in a courtroom at all. Both shows have devoted audiences, so we’re very curious to see which one will eventually advance.

If you’ve taken part in TV Madness before, you likely know how this works — we spotlight the two competitors and then, on the other side of it, give you a poll for you to commence your voting! The poll is located at the bottom of this article.

How voting works – Vote however often you would like! (Technical instructions for multiple voting can be found right above the poll.) We will keep this poll open until Tuesday, March 12 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time — following that, the winner here will face off against either NCIS or Designated Survivor, a battle that is also beginning today. The winner of that battle will make it into the final eight, which isn’t that far from the final four, which isn’t that far from … well, you get the gist of it.

You can see the full bracket (including start dates for each individual round) in the graphic at the top of this article.

The competitors

Law & Order: SVU (#2 seed) – Calling SVU formidable does not even seem like doing it proper justice. This is a powerhouse show with powerhouse characters who fight for justice and the underdog like no other. Olivia Benson is a TV legend, and she’s got a fantastic team around her determined to bring the right result at the end of every case. While they may not always get what they want, you can never question their heroism or their strength.

SVU is entering TV Madness 2019 after a solid showing during round 1 in 2018; however, it lost in round 2 to upstart series Absentia, which brought a devoted following to the polls. Will it finish even stronger this year? We’re never going to rule it out in more or less any showdown.

Suits (#7 seed) – Meanwhile, Suits is entering TV Madness 2019 after losing in the first round last year to NCIS: Los Angeles — hence the lower seeding this year. Yet, there’s no reason to give up on the show’s chances this time around. It does still have a passionate following and while it’s still sad to have Mike Ross and Rachel Zane gone from the show, creatively we just exited season 8 at a pretty high point. It’s hard not to be anything other than thrilled over (season 8 finale spoiler alert!) Harvey and Donna finally got together. What will this mean for the future?

Since season 9 is going to be the final one for the USA show, this will more than likely be Suits’ final year of eligibility in TV Madness. Will it find a way to go out on top, with a (metaphorical) championship belt around its waist? We’re going to have to find out…

Photo: NBC