This Just In: Is This Christopher Meloni's Last Season on SVU?!

Actor tells Australia's Courier-Mail that 12 years is enough; he wants to do theater and film projects next

By Jennifer Godwin Feb 05, 2010 6:10 PMTags
Chris Meloni, Law & Order Special Victims UnitVirginia Sherwood/NBC

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Um, we did not authorize this. Christopher Meloni might be leaving SVU—what?! Apparently the actor told Australia's Courier-Mail, "I think 12 years is enough, a good number...The writers will have fertile ground to figure out how to arc [Elliot Stabler] out to another place—whether it's this world or the next." Meloni wants to do theater and film projects after he leaves the long-running series; Mariska Hargitay, who plays Stabler's partner, Olivia Benson, told the paper she's sticking around SVU for the foreseeable future. Reps for Meloni and NBC did not reply to requests for comment at press time. Oh, Meloni, please don't go. We suspect you might be irreplaceable.

Plus, more TV news, including which True Blood fave is getting some daddy issues...

True Blood: True Blood has cast Brit Morgan to play evil were-vixen Debbie Pelt, and apparently we True Blood fans also have the pleasure of meeting Eric Northman's (Alexander Skårsgard) Viking father in a flashback. Season three of HBO's hit vampire drama airs this summer.

• Love Them! Supercharming cutie Enrique Murciano has been hired to lead a new medical-drama-in-the-tropics pilot called Off the Map. Grey's Anatomy writer Jenna Bans wrote the script and Shonda Rhimes is one of the exec producers. In other other casting news, de-frickin'-lightful character actress Cynthia Watros will play Wilson's (Robert Sean Leonard) first wife on House later this season.

More, More, More: HBO picked up season five of Big Love, Fox announced that season seven of So You Think You Can Dance begins this May, and Syfy has confirmed fan reports that season two of cult-hit Brit series Merlin is moving to that network beginning in April.

Who should play Eric's father on True Blood? And what do you think of this SVU turn of events? Hit the comments.

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Follow Kristin Dos Santos on Twitter, @kristinalert.