The episode 'Bound' reveals that his character likes to host poker games and features a scene in which most of the judge characters in SVU are seated at the poker table. Even though a backstory for O'Halloran was not firmly established during the fifth season, Doyle stated that 'they used to write for O'Halloran as if he were from the Midwest.' Īdditionally, Judge Joseph Terhune was introduced, played by Philip Bosco, who guest-starred as a Parkinson's patient in the previous season. Mike Doyle began portraying CSU forensics technician Ryan O'Halloran with the episode 'Choice', a recurring character he portrayed for the next five seasons. In an email interview, Neal wrote 'I had no idea whether or not I'd performed well in the audition, but I was lucky enough to get the part.' When describing her character, Neal said, 'I always walked like I was uncomfortable in heels, therefore so did Novak.' Unlike The Sopranos, where you're lucky if you leave with your head on.' ĭiane Neal (who previously guest-starred in the 10th episode of Season 3, 'Ridicule', as a female rapist) joined the cast afterward as Casey Novak, a more hands-on and by-the-book ADA than Alex Cabot. Christopher Meloni joked that 'Dick Wolf always has an aversion to whacking his own people.
The last-minute twist of having her character survive was confirmed as a way of letting her character make further appearances. Stephanie March (ADA Alexandra Cabot) departed the cast after the fourth episode, her character 'killed' and placed into the witness protection program. She reminisced 'my memories of this set are of waking up at the ass-crack of dawn on a Saturday when they weren't using it and shooting courtroom for twenty-two hours.' Cast changes and returning characters A 2011 video with Diane Neal reveals that the directors were still using the Law & Order courtroom. ĭuring the filming of the fifth season, SVU still did not have its own courtroom set. Both grand juries disbanded after several weeks and did not indict Jackson, claiming the evidence did not match the accuser's description and citing lack of other evidence.
In the real-life case to which DeNoon refers, the evidence that was not introduced in the 2005 trial was introduced in the two 1994 grand jury hearings after the civil settlement for the civil case. Writer Dawn DeNoon maintains that the jury should have delivered a guilty verdict and said 'Justice wasn't done in the real arena, so I kept closer to the true story in this one than in most of them.' The evidence used in the episode included evidence that never made it to trial in the real case. The nineteenth episode, 'Sick', was based on the allegations of child molestation against Michael Jackson. About the episode 'Home', he said 'I never ever dreamed that I would get so much hate mail' and explained 'children who go to private or public schools are seen by lots of people and that's a safety net.' Jonathan Greene, who wrote the episode, said that Neal Baer has 'instilled in all of us this fascination with how the mind works, and the nexus of where the mind and the law cross.' ĭuring a 2012 interview for the show Media Mayhem, Neal Baer revealed that the most controversial episode of his career came from the fifth season.
The sixth episode, 'Coerced', shows Elliot Stabler and George Huang at odds with each other about how to get through to a schizophrenic man. Casey Novak, the unit's longest-serving ADA, was introduced in the fifth episode when Diane Neal joined the cast to fill the absence left by Stephanie March.Įarly reports about Stephanie March leaving the cast at the end of Season 4 indicate that the first Season 5 episodes were written if not filmed by May 2003.
Law & Order: SVU moved away from its Friday night slot to Tuesday nights at 10pm/9c. The fifth season of the television series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered September 23, 2003, and ended May 18, 2004, on NBC. List of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes