…or not, as you prefer.
I know this subject is a bit played out, but as a BLUE fan/critic, I’m thinking this is a good time to look back and reassess this show which IMO had the potential to develop a truly great ensemble cast into a truly innovative drama, but which fulfilled only part of its potential.
My chief complaints, sometimes expressed here, have concerned the too-frequent cast changes and the too-constant importing of female eye-candy to the squad, but the language breakthroughs and flashes of nudity opened TV up a little bit and the scripts were sometimes spectacularly clear and sharp and subtle, and the development of Sipowicz’s character was nearly perfect over the years (full credit to Franz and Milch and Bochco). Where I would fault the producers would be for keeping haphazard control over the story arc in the largest sense: for allowing threads to be started, and sometimes partially developed, and then abandoning them (and their characters). Sometimes, of course, the actors would dictate the story lines by declaring themselves out of the series before the story arc was complete, but my feeling was that, since this may have been inevitable, it was the producers’ responsibility to keep a tighter grip on those story lines that they themselves chose to end abruptly. There was too much re-adjustment, calling for almost completely viewerly amnesia at times, in this series and some of the blame for that lies at Milch’s and Bochco’s feet.
Rather than reiterate my complaints, I’d as soon hear yours, and hear your praise of this show, before the corpse lies too cold in the ground.