Is Joan Didion Secretly Writing 'SVU' Scripts?????????????????????

                                 It sure seems like it to me, because last night's opener of Season 19, was a real doggie downer.

                                  Thank God for Ice-T, Kelli Giddish, Peter Scanavino, and guest stars Dean Winter and Will Chase.  They breathed some life into this show, when it deigned to focus away from Olivia.  And I loved the knife twist Winters gives Olivia, at the close of their scene.

                                   Yep, this season is going to be All About Olivia, and I could see it coming, right away.  As soon as Noah is almost struck by a car--he is going to kindergarten, now; can you believe it?  Next year, he will be off to college--and he inadvertently tells school officials that his mother gave him bruises on his arm, without explaining it was preventing him from being struck down by a taxi--the authorities are all over Olivia, like a plague of locusts.

                                     The reason no one will believe Olivia, and, as been shown, she is going to be investigated for child endangerment, and almost losing Noah, is that Mariska Hargatay does not have the acting chops for it.  When she plays against someone, like Giddish or Scanavino, not to mention Chris Meloni, it helped cover up her acting deficiencies.  But now, with the producers unwisely choosing to focus the show on her, her lack of ability is glaringly apparent.  Were Kathryn Morris, Jenny Bacon, or Marcia Gay Harden in this role, it would work, because they are such brilliant actresses; even if the scripts are sub par, they could use their skills to make them interesting.

                                      From the moment it premiered, Mariska demonstrated she was no world beater as an actress.  Remember the episode, when Ellen Burstyn played Meloni's bipolar mother?
She blew everyone away on screen, but Meloni could hold his own with her.  Burstyn, with her experience as an actress, easily recognized Hargitay's limitations, and graciously played it down, throwing the scene to her--though who could honestly take one's eyes off Ellen Burstyn, for a second???????

                                      In my post on "AHS:  Cult, I spoke of mojo.  If this show does not develop some, it will not make it to Season 20.

                                        Lighten up. Liv!  This material is old and tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!