law and order svu 19

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (often shortened to Law & Order: SVU or SVU) is an American police procedural crime drama television series created by Dick Wolf for NBC. The first spin-off of Law & Order, it stars Mariska Hargitay as Detective (ultimately promoted to Captain) Olivia Benson, now the commanding officer of the Special Victims Unit after originally having been Stabler's partner in a fictionalized version of the New York City Police Department, and Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler (until Meloni left the series in 2011 after 12 seasons). Law & Order: Special Victims Unit follows the detectives of the Special Victims Unit as they investigate and prosecute sexually based crimes. Some of the episodes are loosely based on real crimes that have received media attention. The series, produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, premiered on September 20, 1999. After the premiere of its 21st season in September 2019, the series became the longest-running primetime live-action series on American television. Since the end of the original run of the main Law & Order series in 2010, SVU has been the only live-action primetime series that debuted in the 1990s that has remained in continuous production. The 23rd season premiered on September 23, 2021, during which the show aired its milestone 500th episode.