‘SVU’ Spinoff ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Gets a New Showrunner

Meredith Jacobs December 10, 2020, 3:00 pm

Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay - SVU - Stabler and Benson — © NBC / Courtesy Everett Collection

Might we see Christopher Meloni back on our screens as Elliot Stabler sooner rather than later?

Ilene Chaiken (Empire, The L Word) has joined the Law & Order: SVU spinoff, Organized Crime, as an executive producer and its new showrunner, Deadline reports. Matt Olmstead (One Chicago) was supposed to be the showrunner but left in October.

This comes after SVU showrunner Warren Leight and star Mariska Hargitay (Captain Olivia Benson, Stabler’s former partner) shared a screenshot of a virtual table read during which Meloni joined the current cast of his former show. Might this mean we may be closer to hearing about a premiere date for Organized Crime? Right now, all we know is it will debut in 2021.

It also won’t be until next year that fans are treated to the highly-anticipated reunion between Stabler and Benson, which Meloni told TV Insider he expects “to be heavily-laden with 10 years of stuff and a lot of emotion,” even if it’s not an “emotional scene.”

Organized Crime is set to air after SVU, Thursdays at 10/9c, and will follow Stabler as he returns to the NYPD to lead an elite unit tasked with taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates. In the time that’s passed since we’ve seen him (SVU‘s Season 12 finale), he’ll have suffered “a devastating personal loss,” according to NBC, and “must adapt to a criminal justice system in the midst of its own moment of reckoning.”