Word: bochco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years," Steven Bochco told an interviewer recently, "I've made a living swimming upstream." But for the past three or four of them, TV's brash experimenter has been thrashing mostly in dry creek beds. The creator of Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law tried a musical police show (Cop Rock), an "adult" cartoon (Capitol Critters) and a sexy law show (Civil Wars). Now, with his new ABC series, NYPD Blue, Bochco is back where he is most comfortable: chronicling the dark, turbulent world of big-city law enforcement. And fighting a raging current...
...Bochco's show, which he invented partly to test the boundaries of TV sex and language, finally goes on the air this Tuesday (10 p.m. EDT) after a hot summer of controversy. Conservative watchdog the Rev. Donald Wildmon has launched a campaign against the show. By late last week, 44 ABC stations had decided not to run at least the premiere; the majority won't air the series at all. Though most are in smaller markets, the defections could seriously hurt the show's ratings. Advertisers, meanwhile, have been wary. Although ad time on the first episode is sold...
...sign of how placid the rest of network television has become that Bochco's strong but relatively conventional cop show has incited such an outcry. The first episode contains a lovemaking scene with some fleeting, shadowy glimpses of breasts and buttocks -- more nudity than elsewhere on network TV, but discreet by cable and feature-film standards. Language is a touch rawer than usual ("pissy little bitch," "douche bag") but stays outside of verboten four-letter territory. As for violence, it is less graphic and less prevalent than in dozens of older TV shoot-'em-ups, from Gunsmoke to Miami Vice...
...quietly trying to downplay the show's racy content. The network sent its affiliates two episodes in addition to the pilot (neither segment has as much explicit material) and got Bochco to trim 15 seconds from the first show's lovemaking scene. ABC's Harbert says that scene is the "high benchmark" for what the series will allow; half the episodes, he promises, will have no nudity at all. "Given that our schedule is so dominated by family programming, such as Roseanne and Home Improvement, we felt there is room for a show that stretches the boundaries, so long...
...program drawing the most scrutiny is NYPD Blue; it is an admitted effort by Bochco, creator of Hill Street Blues, to do network TV's first R-rated series. The pilot episode contains a steamy sex scene with rear nudity, relatively rough language ("You pissy little bitch"), and some strong violence. In the face of affiliate discomfort -- roughly a third of ABC station executives polled at a recent network meeting said they might not run the show -- Bochco said he would consider making some changes: "I'm trying to be sensitive to the concerns without compromising the show...