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Hill Street Blues
Hill Street Blues is an American serial police procedural television series that aired on NBC in prime-time from January 15, 1981, to May 12, 1987, for 146 episodes. The show chronicles the lives of the Metropolitan Police Department staff of a single police station located on Hill Street in an unnamed large U.S. city. The "blues" are the police officers in their blue uniforms.
The show received critical acclaim, and its production innovations influenced many subsequent dramatic television series produced in the United States and Canada. In 1981, the series won eight Emmy Awards, a debut season record surpassed only by The West Wing, in 2000. The show won a total of 26 Emmy Awards (out of 98 Emmy Award nominations) during its run, including four consecutive wins for Outstanding Drama Series from 1981–1984.
MTM Enterprises developed the series on behalf of NBC, appointing Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll as series writers. The writers were allowed the freedom to create a series that brought together a number of fresh ideas in TV drama. Each episode featured intertwined storylines, some of which were resolved within the episode, with others developing throughout a season. The conflicts between the work lives and private lives of the characters were also significant.
The series features a strong focus on the workplace struggle between what is right and what works. Television author John Javna described it as "a cop show for the Big Chill generation, discovering that it takes all of their energy to keep even a few of their ideals alive while they struggle to succeed."
Almost every episode begins with a pre-credit sequence (or teaser) consisting of a briefing and roll call to start the day shift. From season three on, a "Previously on..." montage of clips of up to six episodes precedes the roll call. Author Steven Johnson wrote of the importance to viewers of each episode's roll calls, saying that they "performed a crucial function, introducing some of the primary threads and providing helpful contextual explanations for them." Also, almost all episodes take place over the course of a single day, many concluding with Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) and public defender Joyce Davenport (Veronica Hamel) in a domestic situation, often in bed, discussing how their respective days went. The series deals with real-life issues and employs professional jargon and slang to a greater extent than had been seen before on television.
Each week after roll call, from Season 1 until Michael Conrad's death partway through Season 4, Sergeant Phil Esterhaus says, "Let's be careful out there." Sergeant Lucy Bates continues the tradition through the end of Season 4, as a tribute to Conrad. From Season 5 until most of Season 6, Sergeant Stan Jablonski concludes his roll calls with, "Let's go out there and do it to them before they do it to us." At one point, at the suggestion of Detective Mayo, Jablonski softens this to, "Let's do our job before they do theirs." From then on, the show changed directions and conclusions (and even roll calls) were dropped.
Hill Street Blues employed what was, at that time, a unique style of camera usage for weeknight television productions, such as filming close in with action cuts rapidly between stories. Rather than studio (floor) cameras, handhelds were used to enhance this style. Overheard, off-screen dialogue aurally augmented the "documentary" feel with respect to the filmed action of a scene.
Although primarily filmed in Los Angeles (both on location and at CBS Studio Center in Studio City), the series is set in a generic unnamed inner-city location with a feel of an American urban center in the Midwest or Northeast. Bochco reportedly intended this fictional city to be a hybrid of Chicago, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. The show's opening and closing and cut-scenes were filmed in Chicago.
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Hill Street Blues
Hill Street Blues is an American serial police procedural television series that aired on NBC in prime-time from January 15, 1981, to May 12, 1987, for 146 episodes. The show chronicles the lives of the Metropolitan Police Department staff of a single police station located on Hill Street in an unnamed large U.S. city. The "blues" are the police officers in their blue uniforms.
The show received critical acclaim, and its production innovations influenced many subsequent dramatic television series produced in the United States and Canada. In 1981, the series won eight Emmy Awards, a debut season record surpassed only by The West Wing, in 2000. The show won a total of 26 Emmy Awards (out of 98 Emmy Award nominations) during its run, including four consecutive wins for Outstanding Drama Series from 1981–1984.
MTM Enterprises developed the series on behalf of NBC, appointing Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll as series writers. The writers were allowed the freedom to create a series that brought together a number of fresh ideas in TV drama. Each episode featured intertwined storylines, some of which were resolved within the episode, with others developing throughout a season. The conflicts between the work lives and private lives of the characters were also significant.
The series features a strong focus on the workplace struggle between what is right and what works. Television author John Javna described it as "a cop show for the Big Chill generation, discovering that it takes all of their energy to keep even a few of their ideals alive while they struggle to succeed."
Almost every episode begins with a pre-credit sequence (or teaser) consisting of a briefing and roll call to start the day shift. From season three on, a "Previously on..." montage of clips of up to six episodes precedes the roll call. Author Steven Johnson wrote of the importance to viewers of each episode's roll calls, saying that they "performed a crucial function, introducing some of the primary threads and providing helpful contextual explanations for them." Also, almost all episodes take place over the course of a single day, many concluding with Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) and public defender Joyce Davenport (Veronica Hamel) in a domestic situation, often in bed, discussing how their respective days went. The series deals with real-life issues and employs professional jargon and slang to a greater extent than had been seen before on television.
Each week after roll call, from Season 1 until Michael Conrad's death partway through Season 4, Sergeant Phil Esterhaus says, "Let's be careful out there." Sergeant Lucy Bates continues the tradition through the end of Season 4, as a tribute to Conrad. From Season 5 until most of Season 6, Sergeant Stan Jablonski concludes his roll calls with, "Let's go out there and do it to them before they do it to us." At one point, at the suggestion of Detective Mayo, Jablonski softens this to, "Let's do our job before they do theirs." From then on, the show changed directions and conclusions (and even roll calls) were dropped.
Hill Street Blues employed what was, at that time, a unique style of camera usage for weeknight television productions, such as filming close in with action cuts rapidly between stories. Rather than studio (floor) cameras, handhelds were used to enhance this style. Overheard, off-screen dialogue aurally augmented the "documentary" feel with respect to the filmed action of a scene.
Although primarily filmed in Los Angeles (both on location and at CBS Studio Center in Studio City), the series is set in a generic unnamed inner-city location with a feel of an American urban center in the Midwest or Northeast. Bochco reportedly intended this fictional city to be a hybrid of Chicago, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. The show's opening and closing and cut-scenes were filmed in Chicago.