What’s on TV: Thursday, December 20

Law & Order: SVU

Ten, 9pm

Into its 20th season, this sole survivor of the once-mighty Law & Order franchise is showing its age. And not in a good way. Caretaker is a listless, by-the-numbers episode that features a dull plot, performances so leaden that they wouldn't seem out of place in a soap, and a coup de grace that manages to be both predictable and unbelievable. It lacks tension and the emotional depth is wafer-thin.

Mariska Hargitay as Lieutenant Olivia Benson.Credit:NBC

The case under investigation involves the stabbing murders of a man and his two young children and both Lieutenant Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and one of her detective colleagues, Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), as mothers, feel the horror of the crime deeply. So deeply that there's one scene where they hug and shed a tear about the tragedy of the young lives lost and briefly lament the daunting pressures afflicting modern working women. It's superficial and tokenistic, failing even at the most basic level of a whodunit in terms of providing a credible motive for the killings.

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