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I believe that the people who write these shows, particularly 'SVU', and cast them, and tweak them as the series continues, are absolute geniuses - they have hit on just exactly the right balance of reality and entertainment, believable characters and stereotypes, and have succeeded where other 'cop' shows, even classics like 'Hill Street Blues' tended to fall down.
The emphasis is all on catching the bad guys and prosecuting them; when side-matters and back-story come in - Elliot's homelife or Olivia's mother's rape, Cragen's drinking problem - they're woven into the plotline so seamlessly that it doesn't come off like just another prime-time soap opera set in a police station.
I tried watching that Dennis Franz series (I'm zoning on the name at the moment) a few times, but every episode was the same - the Franz character walking around for 48 minutes beating the crap out of anybody who looked at him funny - criminals, informants, witnesses, victims, whoever got in his way, he didn't care.
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