Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3)-Cedar Herald Index

The third season of the television series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered Friday, September 28, 2001 and ended Friday, May 17, 2002 on NBC. It occupied the Friday 10pm/9c timeslot once again.

Production

In the aftermath of 9/11, several cast and crew members volunteered to help the rescue effort. The main title voiceover by Steven Zirnkilton was also changed for one episode only to include the following dedication:

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3)

Syndicated airings of the episodes replaced this dialogue with the original title voiceover. The opening sequence changed as well; NBC ordered the opening credits for the third season re-edited to remove images of the World Trade Center, which were seen at the beginning and ending; the credit sequences in the previous two seasons were not subsequently changed.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3)

With David J. Burke having left the show at the end of the second season, Neal Baer was the sole showrunner / executive producer of Season 3. During the production of the third season, Baer convinced Amanda Green to begin writing scripts. Green was already serving as a consultant for the series while she worked for the NYPD. The episode "Counterfeit" became her debut as a writer. Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas who also joined the writing staff in the third season enjoyed the freedom of not having to meet with a large team in a writer's room. "As a result, there was no sense of competitiveness. We were working on our own so it was like writing your own mini-feature."

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3)

Cast changes and returning characters

All second season main cast members returned for the third season of the series. BD Wong returned to play forensic psychiatrist Dr. George Huang. He was originally contracted to appear in two episodes at the end of the second season and two episodes at the beginning of the third. As Wong puts it "They asked me to come and do four episodes as a kind of audition, to see if it worked, and after those four episodes they asked me to stay on." Wong credited the New York-based show with giving him the opportunity to regularly act in theatre.

Four cast members of SVU who would recur in subsequent years first appeared in the third season. In "Counterfeit," Robert John Burke began playing NYPD Internal Affairs Sergeant Ed Tucker when it is believed that the Special Victims Unit has been guilty of misconduct. Peter Hermann first played Defense Attorney Trevor Langan in "Monogamy," the episode on which Hermann and Hargitay, who would later marry, first met. The show later hinted in future seasons a light romantic flame between them. In "Surveillance," Joel de la Fuente first appears as the Technical Assistance Response Unit analyst Ruben Morales; at auditions the character was called "Burt Trevor," but this name was given to a different technician. Finally, Judith Light joined the recurring cast in "Guilt" as Alex Cabot's strict boss, Bureau Chief ADA Elizabeth Donnelly. Light was already a fan of the program, saying "You can see when you watch a show like this, the level of professionalism going into it."