Law & Order Special Victims Unit will return to Universal Channel to finish airing its eighteenth season from Sunday February 19th at 10pm, it has been announced. 
The eighteenth season of NBC's drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit will receive its UK premiere on Universal Channel on Sunday October 16th at 10pm, it has been announced. 
NBC is beefing up on four of their hit drama series. The network has ordered one additional episode apiece for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, freshman thriller Blindspot, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D., TVWise has learned. Each of those four series will now produce 23 episodes this season. 
NBC has found the new Sergeant for SVU. Andy Karl (Forever) has boarded the seventeenth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Sergeant Mike Dodds, the second in command at the Manhattan SVU. He is the son of NYPD Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher). Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is losing its showrunner. Franchise veteran Warren Leight, who also served as showrunner on Law & Order spin-off Criminal Intent, will step down from his duties as SVU showrunner at the end of its upcoming seventeenth season, He took over as showrunner in 2011 and is widely credited for "creatively rebooting" Special Victims Unit for its thirteenth season. 
A fan favourite is (temporarily) returning to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Dann Florek, who played Don Cragen across fifteen seasons of SVU (not to mention three seasons of the original Law & Order), is reportedly returning to the veteran procedural to reprise his role in an upcoming episode of the show's sixteenth season. 