The ninth season of the police procedural/legal drama, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered September 25, 2007 and ended May 13, 2008 on NBC. It aired on Tuesday nights at 10pm/9c. Mariska Hargitay, having won a Golden Globe Award in 2005, received her second Golden Globe nomination for her work in the ninth season.
Production
Showrunner/executive producer Neal Baer was more hands-on in the ninth season of SVU writing episodes "Alternate" and "Authority". The last episode crediting Baer as the primary writer was the seventh season episode "Storm". Multiple episodes of the ninth season dealt openly with the abortion debate. A 2008 article for Newsday that criticized American media for avoiding any mention of abortion called Law & Order: SVU the "one exception... willing to take such risks." This season of SVU also coincided with the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike for which Neal Baer served on the negotiating committee. With all of the writing staff participating in the strike, episodes stopped airing for nearly three whole months after the January 22, 2008 episode "Inconceivable".
With Geoffrey Erb having left during the previous season, George Pattison became the show's director of photography. When discussing the visuals in Season 9, Neal Baer said "Last year, we were too dark; we want better lighting."
Cast changes and returning characters
The first episode "Alternate" reveals that Richard Belzer's character, Detective John Munch, passed the sergeant's exam. As a result, other characters begin to refer to him as Sergeant John Munch. Season 9 dramatically reduced the amount of screen time given to Richard Belzer and the following seasons of SVU continued to do the same. When commenting on the reduction in his workload, Belzer said he was "a bit mystified" and that "It's like yanking the tonsils out of the gift horse if I complain too much."
Towards the end of the season, it was announced that Diane Neal (ADA Casey Novak) was departing the cast and days later it was said that she was fired from the series. Asked if she was blindsided by the news, Neal responded "I don't know if blindsided is the right word.... I've lasted longer by several years than almost any other ADA [in the Law & Order universe]. So every year I've been like, 'Is this going to be the one when I leave?' Dick Wolf is known for replacing his cast regularly. And the truth is, I'm really looking forward to the future."
Adam Beach fully joined the cast as Detective Chester Lake, who had already appeared twice on the show. A plan announced by Neal Baer in February 2007 was to portray the detective as a special victim himself. This was fulfilled in the episode "Fight", which reveals that Lake was a foster child. However, days after Diane Neal's departure was announced, Adam Beach announced that he was departing the cast as well. "I very much enjoyed my year on Law & Order: SVU," Beach said. "Now I'm looking forward to new adventures."
Cast
Main cast
Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler
Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson
Richard Belzer as Detective / Sergeant John Munch
Diane Neal as Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak
Ice-T as Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola
Adam Beach as Detective Chester Lake
BD Wong as FBI Special Agent Dr. George Huang
Tamara Tunie as Medical Examiner Dr. Melinda Warner
Dann Florek as Captain Donald "Don" Cragen
Crossover stars
Sam Waterston as District Attorney Jack McCoy (Crossing over with Law & Order)