I was pretty excited when I found out over 6 months ago that Christopher Meloni would be returning as Detective Elliot Stabler on another, new Law & Order franchise. Man, was I disappointed. The first 2 part episode (one SVU, one "Law & Order"-Organized Crime) was two hours I will never get back in my life. The story was pretty much standard, paint-by-numbers, ripped-from-the-headlines crime nonsense. The script itself was predictable and dull. Stabler and wife return to NYC, wife is killed, Stabler RAGES, cries, then RAGES some more! Uh, we've seen it all before. But the worse part was the horrible miscasting of Dylan McDerrmott as the show's villain. If we have to watch Meloni chase this moron around for 13 episodes, count me out! The show is a completely watered-down "Law & Order' reboot. The cast is extremely politically correct and mixed-race by design, as if MSNBC created the series. McDerrmott's character is an Italian mob boss's son, who hates his father so much he changes his last name to his first black wife's surname and tries to appear as a legitimate businessman. Poor Chazz Palminteri was stuck playing the mob father. His character looked relieved when he was shot dead in the head and killed! The worst part of the show is knowing how good it really could have been with the right cast, writers, and tone. What we get is a played-out, dull, "been here, done that", type program. I'm not even going to stick out anymore episodes because I can easily predict how this series will go. Plus, we'll get a weekly 5 or 6 minutes from the whiny actors who play Stabler's children blaming him for their mother's death. Take my recommendation and skip this show and watch an old "Law & Order" re-run with Jerry Orbach playing Detective Lenny Briscoe over this bland & sanitized show. Meloni should stick with Netflix fare such as "HAPPY!" in the future. NBC must have buried him in money to perform in this disgrace. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME on this garbage!