Word: bochco
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...been, in other words, business as usual in the world of Producer Steven Bochco. And that business has been awfully good. Bochco, 44, a deceptively laid-back Californian with a fierce determination to shatter TV's familiar formulas, is on a roll. L.A. Law, his designer drama about life in the legal fast lane, is about to end its second season on NBC as the highest- rated dramatic show on TV's highest-rated network. Hooperman, starring John Ritter as a sensitive San Francisco cop, is one of the season's top-rated new series and an ambitious pioneer...
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...
...other quiet comedy this season is ABC's Hooperman, created by the L.A. Law team of Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher. Starring John Ritter as a San Francisco police detective who inherits a run-down apartment building, the half-hour series plays like a scrunched together episode of Bochco's Hill Street Blues without the violence. The premiere segment made some jarring missteps (a running gag about a policewoman trying to seduce a gay cop) and lunged too hard for the emotional knockout (Ritter bursting into tears over the death of his landlady). But the engaging Ritter is adept...