Hill Street Blues

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ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Channel 4 have started showing Hill Street Blues again! It seems to be on every night very late (or very early if you prefer to think of it that way). I'm recording the show and watching it a more civilised time.

It's 28 years since the first episode was made (can it really have been that long ;)). In some ways it looks a bit dated now, but I'm still really enjoying watching it again.

It was such an influential and innovative show. So many things that are now mainstream were pioneered by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll.

Dark, grainy footage looks so much more real than having everything perfectly lit. American actors with imperfect teeth, spots and worry lines - when do you see that now? Sexism at work. Crap clothes and hair styles, tedium punctuated by moments of extreme violence and sometimes slapstick comedy. Quirky and mentally unstable characters, relationship problems, ethnic tensions, political hanky panky - it's all there.

I remember that HSB did get into a bit of a rut in later series, but the early stuff was great.

Remember - Let's be careful out there!
 

Paulus

Started young, and still going.
Location
Barnet,
Joyce Davenport could represent anytime she wanted;)
 

PaulB

Legendary Member
Location
Colne
What a pity they can't show another Steven Bochco show, NYPD Blue. To my mind, consistently the greatest TV show ever broadcast. Sipowicz was my hero!
 

girofan

New Member
The ocassional series has also been shown on, I think E4 15.00 each afternoon. Keep an eye on your TV guide, you could record it!
If you like this show and are a reader you will enjoy the 87th Precinct stories by the author Ed McBain, very similar to HSB. There are about twenty five books. Unfortunately McBain died a couple of years ago. :wacko:
He is a well known author, used McBain as an alias!!! :rolleyes:
 

Fnaar

Smutmaster General
Location
Thumberland
I used to watch it sometimes in Spain... where it was called "Cancion triste de Hill Street" (Sad Song of Hill Street) :rolleyes:
 
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ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I'm still really enjoying watching HSB again (despite a glitch where Ch4 showed the episode in which Lucy's partner Joe got shot and was near death, but then he was back on duty in the very next episode... huh?).

When I watched the show back in the 1980s, the plots involving gang violence always felt completely over the top. It seemed totally unreal to have gangs of teenagers armed with guns going out to hunt down and murder other teenagers.

In the most recent episode, a 14 year old boy shot and killed a 10 year girl. It suddenly struck me that it would no longer seem unbelievable if that happened here in the UK...

Obesity, dodgy financial practices, gang violence... America leads, the world follows, eh?
 
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