Word: bochco
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That stamp, first seen in his groundbreaking police show Hill Street Blues, has changed the face of TV. Unlike simplistic TV dramas of the past, Bochco shows typically feature a medley of interwoven plots and characters. They grapple with tough social issues, yet leap from scenes of intense drama to raucous comedy. They relentlessly push network standards of good taste, often with a schoolboy penchant for gross-out humor and sexual fetishes. "Steve has . always been one to break the rules," says former NBC Chairman Grant Tinker. "He does it more cleverly, even diabolically, than anyone else. He rocks...
Most important, Bochco has demonstrated that boat-rocking can win an audience -- one, moreover, made up of the sort of young, upscale viewers that advertisers prize most. Bochco creates TV shows for people who don't watch TV. No producer of the 1980s has been more influential. "He's shown that there's an audience for excellence," says David Milch, a former Hill Street writer and now an executive producer of Beverly Hills Buntz. "In so doing, he has increased the possibilities for everyone...
...success has not come without a fight. In the collaborative medium of network TV, Bochco is known as a tough and sometimes abrasive battler for his standards. Colleagues describe him as cool and self-confident, stubborn when dealing with superiors and direct with underlings who do not deliver the goods. "I know I can be difficult," Bochco concedes. "But you can't do work at this level without being demanding of yourself and others...
That self-assurance -- some call it arrogance -- has contributed to professional rifts. In March 1985, at the end of Hill Street's fifth season, Bochco was fired as executive producer after he resisted efforts by MTM Enterprises to reduce the show's high production costs. And late last year Bochco became embroiled in a bitter feud with Terry Louise Fisher, his creative partner on both L.A. Law and Hooperman. After negotiations to take over Bochco's job as executive producer of L.A. Law next season went awry, Fisher was barred from the show's set. She responded with...
...Bochco's sly accomplishment is to have concocted a show that, while styling itself as a no-holds-barred look at the legal profession, manages to reaffirm a host of romantic illusions about lawyers. Except for one cartoon villain (the mercenary Brackman, played by Alan Rachins) and to some extent the slick divorce lawyer played by Corbin Bernsen, virtually all the main characters on L.A. Law are upright, principled, sensitive and dedicated. There are few hints that ethical compromises, or even a healthy professional detachment, might be part of the terrain. When Abby Perkins (Michele Greene), one of the firm...