Word: bochco
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...Prisoner told serial stories before Hill Street, and The Fugitive hung a years-long chase on its otherwise self-contained episodes. But Steven Bochco's cop drama popularized serialized story arcs by proving that audiences would have the patience to stick with a story longer than 60 minutes. Hill Street demonstrated that a TV show could make a virtue of messiness with plots that didn't resolve neatly (or sometimes at all) and heroes who crossed ethical lines. Through conflicted Captain Furillo, abrasive Buntz and biting-prone Belker, Hill Street showed us imperfect cops delivering imperfect justice in an imperfect...
...important show of the Iraq era was supposed to be Steven Bochco's 2005 war drama Over There on FX, but it quickly faded. The analysis was that it was too risky to dramatize a war in which people were still dying. Yet when Army Wives ran up the flagpole, nearly 4 million viewers a week saluted. Why? It's studiously apolitical--"Their battle goes beyond politics, beyond religion, race or gender," a wife says about soldiers now at war--but so was Over There. It's soapy, but Over There was too, with affairs and home-base family dramas...
...NYPD Blue (ABC) Here's the happiest: at a time when serious dramas have virtually disappeared from prime time and new shows seem doomed unless they get surefire time slots, Steven Bochco returned to form with a fierce, unfashionably hard-edged police drama -- and scored a surprise hit. Stars David Caruso and Dennis Franz provide solid character groundwork that has eclipsed the well-publicized (and very occasional) glimpses of nudity...
...fantasy has certainly pleased its fans. But Bochco's shows--from Hill Street Blues through Over There, the FX Iraq-war drama--are better known for gritty realism than uplift. Bochco wouldn't comment on his plans, and ABC president Stephen McPherson insists that Bochco is "going to be doing the same show that Rod created." But shortly after taking over, Bochco fired five of CiC's nine writers. He has a reputation for boldness, if not lately for success: he has had a string of recent network failures (Blind Justice, City of Angels, Brooklyn South...
People connected with the show say it will eventually move away from the novelty of a woman President to political questions--including base closings and disaster relief--and character development. "[Bochco] will probably be exploring characters and issues more," says executive producer Dee Johnson. But producers also say the show would have moved beyond the introductory, gee-whiz-she's-a-woman stage under Lurie too. "The early days of any presidency," says Cohen, "are about what a new leader brings to the office, what their style is and their approach and their inner makeup." They're also about transitions...