‘SVU’ Episode ‘Personal Fouls’ in The ‘SVU’-o-Matic

It's not that "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" is formulaic. It's that...uh...when a show's been on for this long, certain patterns start to emerge? Fine: It's formulaic. But that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. Here are the most basic facts you need to know about last night's episode.

Initial Crime: Hysterical junkie Stevie Harris (Aaron Tveit) interrupts an event honoring a legendary youth basketball coach, ending up getting booked for disturbing the peace.

REAL Crime: The reason Stevie went off is that Coach molested Stevie when he used to play basketball as a kid.

Famous Guest Star Who Obviously Did It: Dan Lauria (the dad from "The Wonder Years"!) who plays Coach Masters.

Headline This Was Ripped From: The case against CYO coach Bob Oliva.

How Was the Real Story Fictionalized? In the episode, Coach Masters is finally undone by testimony from an NBA star; no one so famous spoke out against Oliva.

Who On the SVU Team Is Taking It Personally? Cragen (Dann Florek) has to make a big hairy deal about how nothing bothers him more than cases where trusted persons abuse their power. Also, Fin (Ice T) gets in a few lines to the effect that Coach's victims might not come forward because of the stigma against male homosexuality in the African-American community, and mentions his own gay son.

It's 10 PM, Y'All! "Did he use his hand? His mouth?"

Verdict: The episode ends before the case goes to trial, but as mentioned above, Coach gets arrested off the Grand Jury testimony of one of his most successful former players, Prince Miller (Mehcad Brooks).

Revelations about the Continuing Characters' Personal Lives That We Should Remember Going Forward: New detective Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) is not only married with a child, but his wife is in Iraq, working in Propaganda, for the next eight months.