Capt. Benson’s got a new superior officer.
Coyote co-creator/executive producer David Graziano will serve as showrunner for Law & Order: SVU‘s upcoming Season 24, our sister site Deadline reports.
He will replace former SVU boss Warren Leight, who announced in May that he was ending his second stint as the procedural’s showrunner at the end of Season 23. “As some of you have already figured out, I am stepping down at the end of #SVU23,” he wrote on Twitter at the time. “The last two years of show running during a pandemic have been arduous, and I’ve decided to take a break.”
Leight was showrunner on SVU from Seasons 13 to 17. He returned in Season 21.
In addition to CBS All Access’ Coyote, Graziano’s TV work includes Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, What/If, American Gods, Terra Nova, Lie to Me, Southland and Las Vegas.
SVU‘s Season 23 finale, which aired on May 19, found Olivia Benson taking stock of her private life and mulling the idea of seeing whether or not a more-than-platonic relationship with former partner Elliot Stabler was a good idea. At the same time, her estranged friend/former assistant district attorney Rafael Barba returned to defend a victim of domestic violence; while in town, he and Olivia had a deep, subtext-filled conversation about Stabler, love and friendship — and it ended on an ambiguous note. (Read a full recap.)