There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The really sad part of this show was the sniveling station captain that couldn't gather enough guts to throw his ex-wife out of the station where she appeared daily with some kind of crisis...even after he remarried, she was a giant pain in his butt...the real gems were betty thomas and michael conrad assisted by veronica hamel and bruce weitz...joe spano came through once in a while...jon cypher was a one man wrecking disaster whenever he showed...a large cast for often complex plots, meaning at least 3 story lines per episode...it kept a lot of writers employed for 7 years

What Steven Bochco did in Hill Street Blues for the Eighties was later perfected in NYPD Blue for the Nineties. It was the concept of a police soap opera. The accent in Hill Street Blues was more on character development than on action, though there certainly was enough of that.You had about 10 to 12 regulars on the show, some didn't make it through the seven year run of the series and were replaced by others. A few of the regulars were killed off, one Michael Conrad as Sergeant Esterhaus actually did die during the run and had to be written out. But that was like life itself.We got to know the police and assorted folks at the Hill Street precinct, their problems and frustrations with their job and with every day life. Presiding over it all was Daniel J. Travanti as Captain Frank Furillo, a man with a broken marriage which he healed with Veronica Hamel and a drinking problem which he healed with Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a real human being, but a flawed one.All of them were flawed in some way which was what I liked about the show. Rene Enriquez as Lieutenant Cayateno was a Latino who may or may not have been advanced due to an unofficial affirmative action policy by the department. He knew it and was trying extra hard to prove he was up to the job for real.Kiel Martin was detective J.D. LaRue also with a drinking problem. It took him a couple of seasons to get into Alcoholics Anonymous and I still remember the episode at his first meeting when he saw Travanti there.Veronica Hamel was cool, professional, and drop dead gorgeous. She was a Legal Aid attorney by day and later the second Mrs. Furillo. You can see why Travanti was so attracted to her. First wife Barbara Bosson was the neurotic's neurotic. Maybe it was the pressure of being a cop's wife, but I suspect quite a bit more drove Furillo from here. Bosson later became a victim's advocate and as one who worked in that field, I can tell you that you have a few neurotics working there just like Faye Furillo.James Sikking was Lieutenant Howard Hunter who had a mask of confidence and unflappability to hide some insecurities. He was constantly sucking up and not above disparaging a few colleagues to push himself up in the department.Ed Marinaro was Officer Joe Coffey, an all American type former football player as he was in real life. There was a great episode where he busts his former high school coach for patronizing some street kids. Made him reevaluate a few things.We got to know all these guys inside and out, but my favorite on the show was Bruce Weitz as undercover Detective Mick Belker. That man looked like he lived in a sewer, but that's what made him so effective in dealing with lowlifes and making arrests. It was like Belker found his niche in life and I don't think he was interested in promotion or advancement. In many ways he was the most well adjusted character on the show.Cops really became three dimensional on this show more than any other up to that time. Bochco had no ending episode for Hill Street Blues, the last episode was like any other day at the Hill Street precinct. With the deaths of Michael Conrad, Rene Enriquez, and Kiel Martin, I'm sure that mitigated against any revival episode. But this is one series I wouldn't mind seeing a twenty year anniversary with some of the surviving regulars.I'll bet there are a lot of fans who'd like to know what the Hill Street precinct is like in the 21st century.

The earliest days of television saw the beginnings of Network Programing in its various forms and Genres. In those days prior to the introduction of Video Tape, circa 1958, the programs fell into one of three categories: Live programing, kinescope films and the standard filmed TV Series.So we had News, Variety, Drama,Sports and "Local Chit-Chat(a mixture of mostly Local "Soft" News and Personal Appearances by Celebs , who just happen to be in the area.Later in the mid-1950's, we saw that the Juvenile Western Shows like THE GENE AUTRY SHOW, ROY ROGERS & DALE EVANS and THE LONE RANGER gave rise to a new, revolutionary idea(for TV). Some one out there in TV land came up with the idea of doing "The Adult Western"! Now to this of course, doesn't mean X Ratings or the old "Adults Only!" designation. The Adult Western meant a mature, more realistic, and meatier in characters and storyline.Other actors on the series are: Kiel Martin, Taurean Blacque, Joe Spano, Bruce Weitz, Betty Thomas, Rene Enriquez, Ed Marinairo, Robert Hirshfeld and so many more who came and left the cast during a 7 year run!Once the 'Adult Western' cat was out of the bag, with GUNSMOKE(?), a great population explosion of Western Primetime Series occurred. Soon the Adult Western was the leading genre of filmed series on the air.Well by the mid-1970's, the tide had turned radically. At one point the only series that was even set on the American Frontier was LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. The new "Western" was The Cop Shw. Now, we do mean Police and not the Private 'I' series, which is similar and definitely related. With the coming of HILL STREET BLUES in 1981, a new pinnacle was reached. Until then, most series either were so involved in the activities of the bad time and the Cops (usually Detectives) working the cases.Conversation between partners often times sounded a lot like it could be used in a training manual or training film. This seemed to be a particularly hard problem with any series involving the backbone of our Polioce Departments, the Uniformed Beat Cops.Producer/Creator Steven Bochco's inhabitants of HILL STREET were a great improvement and an advancement for all series dramas. Bochco gave the characters 3 Dimensional Personalities, rather than being like comic strip/comic book cartoon characters, talking in formal Police Jargon about Police situations.HILL STREET introduced the full person to the TV screen. So, if a guy's a Cop, could he be an Oprea Buff or sing with a Barber Shop Quartet society group? Could he have a side business or be a Brick Layer? Whatta bout any Pilots or Scuba Divers?*** And even more importantly, we get a view of personal lives of the men and women of the Precinct. We see divorces, alcoholism, on-the job affairs and all manner of problems that are with us in real life. Early on, they dealt with a Detective McAffey and his being married to 2 women at once. The original Desk Sgt. Phil Esterhaus discovers that an old friend of his is a homosexual and has been paying a lot of attention to him. Sgt. Stan 'Stash" Jablonski(Robert Prosky) comes transferred to the station on bad paper concerning him and a certain Female Lieutennant.THe whole zoo is presided over by one Captain Frank Furillo(Daniel J. Travante) who is not without his foibles. Favourite characters include:Sgt./Lt. Howard Hunter(James B. Sikking) G.I. type head of the Precinct's Emergency Action Teamor "EATERS", PO's Bobby Hill & Andy Renko (Michael Warren & Charles Haid) a salt-n-pepper pair of Street Smart kids, now grown up, Two special mentions for women characters go to: Fay Furillo(Barbara Bosson) Capt. Frank's ex, and A.D.A.Joyce Davenportand (hey,ain't a Davenport a name for sofa-hide-a-bed?) .

Bear with me on a bit of background: For a full decade as a penniless hippie, I didn't have a TV. None of my friends did either. To our minds, TV was a puerile waste of time, pablum for the masses, a substitute for life. Besides, we couldn't afford one. When I settled down tho & my son started going to school, his friends talked constantly about TV programs he knew nothing about. So he wouldn't feel culturally deprived, we decided to get him a little black & white set for his room. Thereafter, whenever I came home from work, I knew where to find my wife & son — both in his room glued to the tube.One evening I was leaning in the doorway waiting for a commercial so I could talk to them & I got caught up in what they were watching — some tough portly mustached detective had been captured by a lunatic with a shotgun & bound to a chair. Tense! When the commercial did come, I said, "Hey, this is a pretty good movie, what is it?" "That's not a movie", they told me, "it's Hill Street Blues, a TV series!" No way, I thought, they had to be pulling my leg. I couldn't believe TV had reached that level of sophistication. They'd taken your standard soap opera format, where no one character predominates & the interwoven stories carry over from episode to episode, & applied it to cops. Cops lead what has got to be hands-down the most bizarre lifestyle imaginable & the viewer's sense of involvement is certainly heightened by knowing that at any moment one of your favorite characters might be gunned down. The show was brilliant & I was hooked. From there on, I watched every episode of HSB I possibly could.Years later, suffering thru a near-suicidal post-divorce funk, coming home to the aching loneliness of an empty apartment with not even a dog anymore to wag his tail in greeting, too depressed even to look up old friends let alone make new ones, I found myself watching the show again. They were showing HSB reruns 5 nights a week just then, so I got to spend an hour each evening with all these familiar faces I'd come to know so well & care about, my own grief momentarily forgotten amidst their trials & tribulations. It's the only thing I can recall with any pleasure from that period & it's not much of an exaggeration to say HSB pulled me thru.So now that the series is finally being released on DVD, I'm pre-ordering it as fast as it comes out. Seeing it again now, I'm much more aware of its flaws — improbable scenes like the EATers shooting up that liquor shop in the very first episode & other contrived situations that strain to produce a few chuckles. Yet I like it all the more for that; it transcends such flaws so easily. Watching it now for maybe the 4th or 5th time, I'm still amazed at the depth & range of characterization, not to mention the added kick of spotting well-known actors like Danny Glover, Forest Whitaker & David Caruso who appeared on the show before they made it big. More sophisticated shows now like NYPD Blue, ER & Sopranos may make HSB seem dated by comparison, but they would never even have existed if HSB hadn't led the way. Not for nothing was it one of the longest-running dramas on TV.I still don't think much of TV, but Hill Street Blues will always hold a special place in my heart.