Nine years after leaving the cast of NBC's Law & Order: SVU, Christopher Meloni is set to reprise his role as Elliot Stabler in a new original drama series set in the Law & Order universe for NBC. The broadcast network has today given a 13-episode series order to the untitled series.
The SVU spinoff will center on the NYPD organized crime unit led by Detective Elliot Stabler.
Dick Wolf, Arthur W. Forney and Peter Jankowski will executive produce the drama. Universal Television and Wolf Entertainment will produce.
Meloni served as the male lead opposite Mariska Hargitay for the first twelve seasons of Law & Order: SVU - appearing in 272 episodes overall. He left the cast in 2011 after contract negotiations broke down and has not reprised the role since then. The role earned Meloni an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2006.
Since exiting the SVU cast, Meloni has starred for one season in FOX's Surviving Jack, two seasons in WGN America's Underground, two seasons in Syfy's Happy! and two seasons in Netflix's Wet Hot American Summer. He has also recurred on HBO's True Blood, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, HBO's Veep and FX's Pose.
The new series order comes as Dick Wolf has signed two massive, multi-million dollar deals in 2020 so far. The first was for Peacock to acquire the exclusive streaming rights to his catalog of original programming across the last thirty years. The second was a renewal of his overall deal at Universal Television for the next five years - which included three season renewals for his four dramas currently airing on NBC (SVU, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med).
