Michele Fazekas Named Showrunner, S27 Renewal Eyed

EXCLUSIVE: NBC‘s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has a new showrunner, Michele Fazekas, who is returning to the venerable crime drama after almost two decades. Coming off a stint as showrunner/co-showrunner on Prime Video’s Gen V, Fazekas is replacing David Graziano who served as SVU showrunner for the past three seasons and will finish the current Season 26 before handing over the reins to Fazekas. The NBC procedural, from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, has not been renewed yet for 2025-26 yet but that is fully expected.

Fazekas’ appointment marks the first time in SVU‘s 26-year history that a female showrunner will spearhead the series, which has a female lead, Mariska Hargitay as the iconic Captain Olivia Benson, and deals primarily with sexual crimes against women.

“As I see it and look back, Olivia Benson is sort of a perfect feminist story because we actually see this woman grow into her power,” Hargitay told Today last year about playing the character for two and a half decades.

The longest-running live-action primetime series ever on American television, Law & Order: SVU chronicles the lives of the Special Victims Unit of the New York City Police Department, an elite squad of detectives who investigate crimes of sexual assault, child abuse and domestic violence. Ice T, Peter Scanavino, Octavio Pisano, Kevin Kane and Juliana Aidén Martinez also star.

Previously, Fazekas, along with former longtime writing partner Tara Butters, was a writer-producer on SVU during Seasons 3-7 while Neal Baer was showrunner. Over their tenure, the duo wrote or co-wrote 19 episodes, rising to co-executive producers in Season 7, and earned two WGA Award nominations for their work.

Most recently, Fazekas served as an executive producer and showrunner on the upcoming second season of Gen V for Sony Pictures TV and Amazon MGM Studios after serving as co-showrunner on Season 1 with Butters. Fazekas worked on The Boys spinoff while under a Sony overall deal that ended in January. As she became available, and with a Season 3 renewal decision on Gen V not expected until at least late summer/early fall when Season 2 is targeted to launch, Fazekas opted to move on and take advantage of the opportunity on a series that had played a major role in her career.

Fazekas and Butters previously created and executive produced such series as the CW’s Reaper and ABC’s Emergence and Kevin (Probably) Saves the World. Additionally, the duo also served as executive producers/showrunners on ABC’s Marvel’s Agent Carter and Resurrection. Fazekas is repped by Adventure Media and Gendler, Kelly, Cunningham.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was created by Dick Wolf. He executive produces the current 26th season with Graziano, Julie Martin, Hargitay, Norberto Barba, Kenneth Brown and Peter Jankowski. The series is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment.