Law & Order: Special Victims Unitexecutive producer and showrunner Warren Leight appeared on The Hollywood Reporter podcast TV's Top Five, where he discussed how police are portrayed on TV.
The long-running NBC show is known for taking on real-world events. Leight tells THR that season 22 will continue these efforts by tackling police brutality and COVID-19, saying:
"This shows always is of the moment. It has to come up, and it will. We will find our way in to tell the story...Presumably our cops will still be trying to do the right thing but it's going to be harder for them and they're going to understand why it's hard for them."
SVU Writer's Room
Law & Order: SVU premiered back in 1999. Since then, Leight has actively embraced the concepts of racism and equal rights for episodes, and has made changes in the writers' room to bring in new, fresh, and different voices to the show.
Along with racial inequalities, the coronavirus pandemic weighs heavily on the conscious of Americans. Regarding this, Leight wants viewers to reflect on the pandemic, saying:
"We're going to reflect New York in the pandemic. What happened to someone who is sexually assaulted during the height of the coronavirus outbreak."
Back in March, Josh Wallwork, a crew member on the show lost his life to COVID-19 shortly after the production shutdown.
In February, NBC renewed SVU for three more seasons. Leight, the showrunner of HBO's In Treatment and creator of the FX drama Lights Out also won the Tony award for the play Side Man in 1999. Leight is also the creator the Law & Order: Hate Crimes which set to star Christopher Meloni returning to his previous role as Elliot Stabler.
