"Ipso this, you pissy little bitch." - Dennis Franz as Det. Andy Sipowicz to Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Sylvia Costas (Sharon Lawrence)
NYPD Blue: Season One DVD Review
By Frances L. Egler
September 1993 marked the beginning of the NYPD Blue era, and television's standards of decorum would never be the same. It seems almost quaint now, in these days of the permeation of HBO's all but uncensored The Sopranos and Sex and the City into the mainstream, but there was a time when a number of ABC affiliates refused to broadcast the premiere of Blue because of nudity and language. Of course, when it began to draw huge numbers, the stations had a quick change of heart and began to broadcast the program, a ratings hit after only a few weeks on the air. The compromise between the network and its prudish affiliates resulted in the warning before every broadcast that lasts to this day, that "Viewer Discretion is Advised" for this particular police drama.
Certainly Blue was the first program to, as now executive producer Bill Clark, a retired New York cop himself, puts it, "have police talk as police would talk." So "dickhead," "asshole," "prick" and other colorful stationhouse speak ended up on the air. They also were trying to depict the lives of not-quite-emotionally-complete adults working in dangerous jobs, as well as the flawed ways many of them approached love and relationships. So there is sex. There is a lot of sex. There is David Caruso's ass. There are glimpses of the breasts of Gail Grady, Sherry Stringfield, and Amy Brenneman. In the very informative and revealing "Making of Season One" featurette, Steven Bochco states that he wanted to make a television drama that was different and grittier than the slick hit that he had just finished, L.A. Law. He and Clark ran interference with network standards representatives for the somewhat unstable but enormously creative writer and co-creator David Milch (whose personal battle with alcohol was a major inspiration for the character of Andy Sipowicz's own struggles with booze).
Beyond all the butts and assholes, what they created was an involving and provocative study of Manhattan's 15th precinct detective squad. The lead - and our romantic hero - is John Kelly (David Caruso), son of a slain hero cop, and the go-to guy for everyone in the stationhouse. He always knows the best way to nail a perp, and to keep the squad together. His biggest flaw is his relationship with women. He is recently divorced from Laura (Sherry Stringfield), who comes back into his life with fellow tenant issues in her building (watch for a pre-Friends David Schwimmer as a lonely lawyer) and later as an ADA. Kelly begins a disastrous flirtation with mobbed-up cop Janice Licalsi (Amy Brenneman, with some fantastic big hair), which adds some steam to the show. Quickly the show strikes a balance between Kelly and the crashing freight train that is his partner, Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz, as one of the best characters ever on television). Sipowicz is a raging drunk in the first episode, survives a murder attempt that he provokes, wages a futile battle of revenge on his assailant, and begins an awkward but believable romance with ADA Sylvia Costas (Sharon Lawrence) in the first few episodes. Sipowicz, like Kelly, is a great detective, but has let the years on the job wear him down, and has found his only solace in booze. His journey to an uneasy sobriety is an amazing development to watch. The initial refusal of his estranged son, Andy Jr. (Michael DeLuise), to reconcile with him, and his relapse when he feels pressured to marry Sylvia, show the wreckage of Sipowicz's past smacking him square in the face. Franz makes it all work and makes this recovering, racist lout a sympathetic porcupine. Don't get too close or his humanity might show.
Balancing the program between Kelly and Sipowicz wasn't an easy feat, but Bochco and Milch achieve it with multi-episode story arcs, with a wonderful revelation of character throughout the gritty stories of New York crime. Add to this Gregory Hoblit's groundbreaking jolting camera work and Mike Post's throbbing percussive theme song, and they had devised a formula that worked - a New York cop show that looked and sounded like a real precinct, but kept the involving stories of good television drama. They had a hit.
Unfortunately, they also had David Caruso. Early into the show, according the juicy featurette (which Caruso wasn't interviewed for, so for details we rely on the producers as well as Dennis Franz and Sharon Lawrence, as well as a few other cast and crew members), Caruso started making noise about the size of his role, and how he needed to be freed from his contract to pursue his career in films (if he only had the foresight our hindsight gives us now). While they try to be as tactful as possible, it was clear that Caruso was as unpleasant to deal with as the network censors, and after the first season, everyone knew (and, seemingly, prayed) that he would be gone. Bochco and Milch would have to come up with a different mix for season two.
Stand out episodes include the pilot, "Oscar, Meyer, Wiener" (featuring Licalsi's confession of mob involvement), "Guns 'N Rosaries" (Licalsi's arrest and a neighborhood anti-cop melee that is almost as tense as Sipowicz's attempt at reconciliation with Costas), and the season finale, "Rockin' Robin." All the episodes are worth taking in, and the commentary given by David Milch and director Brad Siberling (who became Mr. Amy Brenneman), among others, on various episodes is informative, if a bit awkward at first.
The only criticism of the first season is the unfair one - everything isn't settled yet. The visual style is there, but the main characters are all in the process of revealing who they are, and what got them to the 15. Gordon Clapp (Det. Greg Medavoy), Nicholas Turturro (Det. James Martinez), Gail O'Grady (PA Donna Abandando, setting the precedent of "PA reaction shot" that lasts until today) and James McDaniel (Lt. Arthur Fancy) all compete for screen time with Caruso and Franz, and they lose. Sherry Stringfield saw the wall that her character's development was hitting and left after this season, to another new drama on NBC, called ER. Only Clapp and O'Grady's doomed romantic affair stands out. Still, the writers and producers are building the foundation for one of the best television dramas, and certainly the most compelling police drama, ever. It's fascinating to watch it develop without the annoyance of all those TNT and Court TV promos.
The packaging includes a lovely fold out digipak that slips into a nice box. Also included is a small episode guide, helpful only if you know the major story line of the episode that you are looking for. Much more helpful if you are looking for a specific episode, casting and a few opinions here and there is a fantastic fan site for NYPD Blue, Alan Sepinwall's NYPD Blue Homepage, run by the television critic for the New Jersey Star Ledger.
