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Hill Street Blues Overview
Hill
Street Blues is a police drama television show that was
first aired on the NBC television network in 1981. The
Hill Street Blues TV series ran for 146 episodes.
Chronicling the lives of the staff of a police precinct in
an unnamed American city, the Hill Street Blues television
series received high critical acclaim and its innovations
proved highly influential on serious dramatic television
series. Hill Street Blues debut season was honored
with eight Emmy awards, a debut season record surpassed only
by The West Wing. The Hill Street Blues tv show
received a total of 98 Emmy Award nominations during its
run.
Hill Street Blues Season Episodes on DVD
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Hill
Street Blues - Season 1 on DVD (1981)
Amazon.com
essential video - Created by Steven Bochco and one
of television's most influential series, Hill Street
Blues was not your father's cop show. The
Emmy-winning pilot episode, "Hill Street Station,"
immediately established the series as less a police
procedural than an up-close and personal "interface
with the police experience." To establish gritty,
documentary-like realism, the show featured
sequences, such as the pre-credit roll call, that
were filmed with a hand-held camera. There was
chaotic, overlapping dialogue. There were sudden,
shocking bursts of violence that claimed popular
characters. Story lines were not wrapped up at the
end of the hour, but instead, unfolded serially
throughout the season. It's no wonder that Hill
Street, while championed by most critics, was
initially not embraced by viewers. It was, in the
beginning, one of television's lowest rated shows,
its case not helped by NBC's criminal practice of
juggling it in its primetime schedule). But there is
justice in Hollywood. Hill Street Blues won the Emmy
for best drama in its first season. Also honored
were several members of the ensemble, including
Daniel J. Travanti as the compassionate and
incorruptible Precinct Capt. Frank Furillo, Michael
Conrad as the avuncular Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (whose
cautionary, "Let's be careful out there," became the
show's pop culture signature), and Barbara Babcock
as the wildly sexual Grace Gardner, who rocks
Esterhaus's world (particularly in the episode that
earned her her statuette, "Fecund Hand Rose").
There were no big stars on Hill Street Blues (or,
for that matter, no little stars, as one of the cast
members jokes during a near-hour-long reunion
featurette included as a bonus feature on this three
double-sided disc set). Each was an indelible
character, among them Charles Haid as cowboy cop
Andy Renko, Veronica Hammel as sexy public defender
Joyce Davenport, Bruce Weitz as the untamed,
animalistic Belker, Keil Martin as LaRue, whose
descent into alcoholism is one of the season's most
compelling dramatic arcs, and James Sikking as the
gung-ho Howard Hunter. Once daring, Hill Street
Blues seems almost quaint today, with none of the
graphic sex or language that scandalized NYPD Blue
(in one episode, a captured cat burglar, portrayed
by a pre-L.A. Law Michael Tucker, makes a reference
to "wolf pee-pee"). The ethnic portrayals, too, are
not exactly nuanced. But the human dramas at the
heart of Hill Street still make for arresting
television. --Donald Liebenson |
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Hill
Street Blues - Season 2 on DVD (1981)
Amazon.com
DVD Review - Despite critical acclaim, Hill Street
Blues could not get arrested ratings-wise its first
season. Far from being careful out there, the superb
second season did nothing to tinker with the
integrity of this groundbreaking series to make it
more audience friendly. Multiple storylines,
overlapping dialogue, gritty language, and a
pseudo-documentary style capture the palpable chaos
and tension of what one character calls "the
rat-infested, poverty-stricken urban reality." From
the precinct-house shooting rampage that opens the
season to a hijacked hearse in the season-ending
episode, Hill Street Blues deftly walks the line
between police procedural and personal drama,
further fleshing out its gallery of compelling and
colorful characters. Belker (Bruce Weitz) is still a
growling mad dog who takes bites out of perps. But
in one of the series' most memorable story arcs, he
forms a surprising bond with the delusional costumed
citizen Captain Freedom (Dennis Dugan), Public
defender Joyce (Victoria Hamel)'s steamroller
persona breaks down when a colleague is murdered and
the case is thrown out because of a technicality.
Other dramatic developments: LaRue (Keil Martin)
falls off the wagon and endangers his partner,
Washington (Taurean Blacque), during a drug bust
("Zen and the Art of Law Enforcement"); Goldblume
(Joe Spano) gets personally involved in the case of
an abusive slumlord ("Of Mouse and Man," featuring
future Miami Vice star Edward James Olmos as a
threatened tenant); Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) is
still bedeviled by sexual siren Grace Gardner
(Barbara Babcock); and Precinct Capt. Frank Furillo
(Daniel J. Travanti, who earned his second Emmy for
Best Actor) and Joyce bring their clandestine affair
out into the open. Other ongoing storylines involve
realistic depictions of police corruption and
inter-partner race relations. Hill Street's second
season fulfilled the promise of its auspicious
first, and repeated as TV's Outstanding Drama Series
at the Emmy Awards. No roll call of classic,
trendsetting TV series would be complete without it.
--Donald Liebenson |
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Additional
seasons of the Hill Street Blues TV show are not yet
available on DVD. |
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