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Hill Street Blues (TV Series)

TV Shows from the 80s

Hill Street Blues

1981

Steven Bochco (Creator), Michael Kozoll (Creator) ...

Daniel J. Travanti, Michael Conrad, Michael Warren, Bruce Weitz ...

7.2

18,516

TV Series. Drama TV Series (1981-1987). 7 Seasons. 146 episodes. The lives and work of the staff of an inner city police precinct in New York. The original "ensemble drama," this is the story of an overworked, under-staffed police precinct in an anonymous inner city patterned after Chicago. We follow the lives of many characters, from the lowly beat and traffic cops to the captain of the precinct himself. This is the show that blazed the trail followed ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	John J. O'Connor The New York Times	"The very insistence of 'Hill Street Blues' in being seemingly messy is what gives the show its distinctive personality."	POS
United States	Rob Sheffield Rolling Stone	"It was racy stuff in the Eighties to show an unmarried couple who liked to share a bathtub. So many landmark dramas came out of this precinct"	POS
United States	Richard Whittaker Austin Chronicle	"The cop show that changed TV (...) A massive ensemble piece, grimy, gritty, with an underlying sense that the cops were putting a band-aid over the issues."	POS
United States	Noel Murray Los Angeles Times	"'Hill Street Blues' defined TV sophistication (...) Steven Bochco's decision to tell open-ended stories, rare for prime-time dramas at the time, established the model that quality TV still follows"	POS
United States	AV Club	"In terms of character development, storytelling, and world building, television had seen nothing like it before (...) It’s a show of its time, but it’s also a show that feels unexpectedly modern"	POS
United States	CNN	"It was well-written, boldly directed and creatively revolutionary."	POS
United States	Chicago Tribune	"[A] prime-time phenomenon, if not in numbers, in intelligence and sensibility"	POS
United States	Houston Chronicle	"Co-creators Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll reinvented the cop genre and the ensemble drama, and their handiwork lives on today."	POS
United States	USA Today	"Content today, from 'The Wire' to 'True Detective' to 'Serial' — whole projects borne of what 'Blues' introduced as story arcs — owe a debt to the show"	POS

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