LOL, cute.

I copied/paste from IMDb.com board of SVU

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/pu ... 0980.shtml

SOMETHING NEW: "Law & Order: SVU" executive producer Neal Baer reports, "We're bringing in a new assistant DA character, a woman. I don't know who's going to play her yet, but I know what her background is. She's in the process of getting a divorce, coming back to New York City to take a job after living in D.C. In the job she had previously, doing policy work on women's issues, she felt she was always involved with statistics and she wanted to be out working with people."

The new character replaces Diane Neal's Casey Novak. "She played the part for five years -- the longest ADA of any (Dick) Wolf show -- and she wanted to go out and do new things. She's really funny and she'd like to do comedy," says Baer.

Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni "work probably every day. Everyone else is back," notes Baer, who also informs that the writers are nine scripts into next season's shows already, with a mid-July production start, barring a strike.

And speaking of Emmy nominations, "L&O: SVU" has been so loaded with stellar guest star performances, the show's For Your Consideration trade ads have included double page spreads, with names including Rhea Perlman, Cynthia Nixon, Aidan Quinn, Bill Pullman, Melissa Joan Hart, Erika Christensen, Stephen Collins and Robin Williams -- the latter of whom went evil to play a sick sort who poses as a police officer in order to trick other people into committing crimes in the show's 200th episode.

"We were thrilled to have him," Baer says. "We always pride ourselves on getting really wonderful actors, and this was an amazing year."

I totally agree with you. I believe the characters family issues and life experiences are what enables them to, as you say, relate to their cases. It also makes for drama when they see things from totally different points of view due to the same life experiences. I also don't think one characters' back story is given more time than the other. There has always been Liv and El centric eppys, I believe, pretty evenly split.

ANY NEW SPOILERS PPL????

I think we might not have any for at least another month or so when they actually start filming for the fall.

I have to theories about the mental health issue.

1. Kathy is going through post partum depression or whatever its called.

and my favorite
2. Kathy is driving Elliot CRAZY.

OH!

cant argue with ya there! :D