Robin Williams' SVU Episode Was Based on Real Controversial Experiment
SVU has been one of NBC's most popular shows since its inception in 1999, following a team of New York City detectives investigating the most heinous of crimes. Some of these crimes are based off of real-life occurrences, including an episode featuring Robin Williams.
Williams guest starred as Merritt Rook on the Season 9 episode Authority – one of the series' highest-rated episodes.
Rook calls into a restaurant and, posing as a police officer, convinces a manager to bind and strip-search an employee. He's arrested by Detectives Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Benson (Mariska Hargitay ) and charged with conspiracy to commit sexual assault.
Choosing to represent himself at trial, he encourages the jury to question all authority. He is found not guilty. He then organizes demonstrations, encouraging the public to question authority.
Stabler and Benson dig into his personal life, discovering that his hatred of authority started when his wife died because of a doctor's mistake. They go to pick him up a Grand Central, where Stabler loses both Rook and Benson.
Stabler tracks Rook at a recording studio – along with Benson, who is tied to a chair that's been wired with bombs. Rook gives Stabler a switch, which he says will electrocute Benson. He says Stabler can do it himself or watch Rook do it. Stabler refuses, trying to reason with the madman. Rook thanks Stabler for not blindly following him, saying that the explosives are fake and Benson is fine.
When Rook gives Stabler the choice of watching his partner be electrocuted or doing it himself, he was practicing the Milgram experiment.
The Milgram experiments were conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale University in the 1960s, testing the willingness to obey an authority figure whose orders clashed with conscience.
A volunteer would be told he was the "teacher," with an actor portraying the "learner." The volunteer was the true subject, being told that they were taking part in a study of memory. The experimenter would dress in a lab coat and the actor would be strapped to a fake electric chair.
The "teacher" would ask questions to the actor. With every wrong answer, they were instructed to shock the learner with increasing voltage. The shock wasn't real – but the teacher believed they were administering pain to the actor.
The experimenter was instructed to answer any protests from the teacher with the following responses in order: "Please continue," "The experiment requires that you continue," "It is absolutely essential that you continue," and "You have no other choice; you must go on."
All of the subjects paused the experiment to protest, but most continued to the end.
The experiments were conducted to understand why regular people in Nazi Germany followed orders, believing that people naturally obey an authority figure.
While the ethics of Milgram's experiments have been debated, Rook took it to another level on SVU – another example of the long-standing show pulling plots from real life.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit will continue its 24th season on January 5.