Dick Wolf Felt It Was a ‘Miracle’ That ‘Law & Order SVU’ Survived After Mariska Hargitay Took Over
Law & Order SVU faced some potentially dark days after Chris Meloni left the series. This would’ve required Mariska Hargitay to anchor the show as the lead, which a few weren’t sure would work.
Dick Wolf wasn’t sure ‘Law & Order SVU’ would survive without Chris Meloni
Law & Order SVU has become one of the longest-running shows consistently on television. Its longevity even surpassed the original Law & Order, which currently has 23 seasons. This is partially because the original series was temporarily canceled in 2010 before being brought back in 2022. It was a feat that even left some of the show’s cast members rattled. Hargitay couldn’t help but be shocked at her show’s legs when she reflected on its enduring success.
“You have to take stock of these 21 years and the origins of it and how it happened and [Wolf’s] vision,” Hargitay once told USA Today. “And sometimes, for me, it feels like his vision is so awe-inspiring, it’s hard to download how one person could not think of one show, but all these shows. And then after 20 years end, he’s like ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll do it again.'”
For Wolf, SVU outliving Law & Order was made all the sweeter after the latter’s unceremonious cancellation.
“It’s been an amazing climb back from the utter frustration of having L&O canceled after 20, and that was one of the worst days of my entire 37-year career,” Wolf said. “[Ice-T] was actually the first one to say, ‘Ah, we’ll beat it’… I started to believe, like, four years ago that it could actually happen, and now it has. And hopefully the next landmark could be 25.”
What made this more impressive was that many felt SVU was once in jeopardy of being canceled as well. Meloni left the series in 2011, leaving Hargitay to lead SVU on her own. But Wolf wasn’t sure SVU could’ve lasted without Hargitay’s dynamic with Meloni.
“This was a classic two-hander with her and Chris. To go from a dual-lead show to a single-lead show, and to have it survive and prosper, is a miracle,” Wolf said. “Everybody at NBC assumed the year after Chris left would be the last of the show, and she turned it around. It was a little-noted but huge accomplishment. It’s amazing that the entire structure of the show changed.”
Likewise, Hargitay believed her character Olivia Benson was given more room to grow after Meloni’s departure.
Chris Meloni wanted to make it clear that Dick Wolf wasn’t the reason he left ‘Law & Order SVU’
Meloni was very candid that the reason he left SVU was due to a contract dispute. He and the show’s executive producers simply couldn’t reach a compromise that Meloni felt was satisfying enough. But at the same time, Meloni also wanted to explore new opportunities away from a show he’d spent more than a decade investing in.
“I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do, keep moving forward,’” Meloni once told The Post. “I had done the Law & Order way of storytelling, which they do really well, and I was interested in telling stories from a different angle — whether comedic or inhabiting a new world or doing it on different platforms.”
But Meloni was adamant that his decision to leave had nothing to do with any potential grudges he had with the show’s cast and crew.
“How I left was a different issue and had nothing to do with the Law & Order people, the ‘SVU’ people or with Dick Wolf,” Meloni said. “I left with zero animosity, but I did leave clearly and open-eyed in going forward and finding new adventures.”
Perhaps this might’ve been why Wolf didn’t have too much trouble convincing Meloni to return for Organized Crime. The showrunner contacted his former SVU star out of the blue with an enticing offer.
“It truly came about by [series creator] Dick Wolf calling and saying he wanted to discuss a project,” Meloni said. “I was like, ‘Oh, really? OK.’ I was shocked.”
“I never thought this was going to happen, but the circumstances for me changed. So ‘yes’ became the correct answer,” he further added.
