We Are A Little Concerned About ‘SVU’s New Manpower Direction

It will be no secret to anyone who knows either member of the Defamer Australia team that we are massive fans of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Regularly, your Editor and myself will sit down and textually narrate each episode, like a Doris Day and Rock Hudson split-screen for the MTV generation, thrilling as they catch bad dudes and marvelling at the bottomless well of URST between Dets Benson and Stabler. (In addition, if you ever want to really laugh, and then cry a bit, and then feel slightly nauseated, and then laugh again, Google “SVU fanfic”. Do it.) So, naturally, you can imagine my concern when I stumbled upon these photos of the SVU crew filming in New York’s Meatpacking District last week and, well, let’s just let the costume department speak for itself, shall we? Here is Christopher Meloni, in costume and on-set as Detective Elliot Stabler:

Are those tearaway pants? That sleeveless shirt – and tie?! – says one thing and one thing only: Manpower. Now, we ain’t sayin’ Stabler ain’t fiiiine, because he is, but surely introducing a hitherto unexplored subtext to the character, involving his leaving the force to join a male strip revue is ratings-chasing gone crazy? Is nothing sacred anymore??