Continuity points

The season 19 episode "Falling", in which Cutter is trying to prevent a woman from having surgery performed on her handicapped daughter that will stunt her growth, makes a number of references to season 5's "Precious", the episode in which McCoy wanted a woman who kept killing her babies to undergo forced sterilization.

I believe you meant "Sands Point," not "Hunts Point" in the continuity reference between those two episodes. Sands Point is a wealthy area on Nassau County's (Long Island) north shore, sometimes called the Gold Coast. Hunts Point is an area in the South Bronx, hardly a wealthy area. But I like those continuity references across episodes, too.

Remember the episode Olivet testified at when she discussed the pros and cons of a shrink having a relationship with a patient? And Cutter crossed her in an embarrassing way about her own relationship with Detective Logan after she got raped by her own doctor (Season 3's "Helpless").

One continuity lapse, ore perhaps it was done purposely, is how ADA Jamie Ross reversed her position on the death penalty from the time she began (she was for it in her first episode, Season 7's "Causa Mortis" when she wanted to have the carjacker-killer executed, even using her federal attorney friend to force a witness to testify against him), to the time she left when she announced in an episode how she was against the death penalty. It was never clear to me when or how she reversed her position.

I recall other references to Season 8's Shadow, which featured the downfall of Ross's ADA friend who took bribes to fix cases. He (the corrupt ADA), referred to "Harvest" in a later episode as payback for letting her take over his case to trick Camacho into turning over his gun he used in the murder.

SVU has used unresolved plot lines from L&O episodes. Remember SVU's "Entitled" which picked up where L&O's "Mayhem" left off with the unsolved murder by the man with thick eyeglasses we saw at the end of "Entitled?" They even had Briscoe appear in "Entitled" to discuss the old case with Cragen (who was also in "Mayhem") to provide background.

How about Detective Green's gambling problems at the end of his run on the show, referring to the death of Briscoe as a reason for his relapse? We never saw Briscoe die but we know Jerry Orbach died in late 2004, just after his last appearance on L&O and near the beginning of the short-lived spinoff "L&O: Trial by Jury) which he was a main character.

There were pairs of episodes, sometimes airing many years apart, which the second episode was a sequel of the first one. Think of Coma and Encore, Conspiracy and Entrapment, Indifference and Fixed.

Season 8's "Under the Influence" is a huge focal point for many references to past episodes and is referenced in future ones. That was the episode in which a drunk driver killed a few people and Jack goes all-out (and then some) in trying to get a top-count conviction, initially. Jamie points out that he might be trying to avenge Claire's death at the hands of a drunk driver ("Aftershock") and I recall Jack's trying to hide a potential witness (an airline stewardess) whose testimony would help the defense coming back to bite him in later episodes when he faces the ethics committee. Abby reminds of that in Season 9 IIRC when Jack tries to rein in Abby for some borderline unethical tactics.

This whole thread is a great example of why IMDB should not be getting rid of the message boards. These are great connections that hadn't occurred to me.