The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue Season 12, The Final Wrap-Up

As recently as Season Ten, I was remarking on the show’s continued ability to create strong hooks for episodes, and consistently discover some new angle to make the aging show interesting in some way.  Then, Season Eleven happened.  That year did have some solid episodes, but overall, it’s hard to deny a sense of exhaustion.  Looking back on the later days of NYPD Blue, I can pinpoint two moments the series never recovered from. 

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue Season 12, Stars & Guest Stars

Once it was obvious that NYPD Blue would be on the air for a very long time, Dennis Franz made it known that he’d like the series to end with Season Twelve, thinking it a nice, even number.  The show was nearly clipped in Season Eleven, given the incredible cost of keeping such a long-running drama in the air.  (Typically, a series becomes more expensive to produce each year it’s on, if only due to the yearly raises that are expected.)

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Eleven, The Wrap-Up

Entering what could've been its final season, NYPD Blue seemed willing to go in a direction it's stubbornly avoided for years -- extended story arcs in favor of done-in-one, easily solved cases.  Not that there aren't one-episode plots, of course, and plenty of cases starring the B-Team that just come across as filler, but for the first time the series splits the season up into numerous story arcs.  There's the Captain Fraker trial, the serial killer case that brings Det. Russell back into the squad, the drama between Baldwin and a killer named Craig Woodruff, the disruption caused by the amoral Det. Stan Hatcher, and finally, the reopening of the case of twelve-year-old Cindy Clifton, Sipowicz's first murder investigation.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue - Season 11, The Cast & Guest Stars

Season Eleven was potentially the last season of NYPD Blue, even though the series remained ABC's highest-rated drama at the time.  The cost of the show had ballooned over the years, while ABC was suffering from some rather pathetic ratings, overall.  A deal was struck to keep the series alive for one more year at a reduced budget, however, which meant massive changes to the cast list at the end of the season.

Were those departures handled with tact and respect for the characters?  Or did half the characters go out like Adrienne Lesniak?

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Ten, The Wrap-Up

The tenth season of Blue sticks to the revised formula Steven Bochco developed for the series.  Two cases per episode (Sipowicz and Clark alternate between using McDowell and Ortiz or Medavoy and Jones as back-up on the main case), a culprit who isn’t obvious until the last act of the episode, and closing personal life scenes to round out the show.  Individually, most of the episodes remain entertaining, and there is a sense that the detectives are putting more work into the cases than we’ve seen in previous years.  You see more locations in each episode, and more scenes of detectives interviewing suspects that aren’t obviously guilty or innocent than in the Milch years, which tended to dwell on the interrogations.

I’ve mentioned earlier that making the least likely suspect the perpetrator just creates its own formula, but I can understand the argument that it’s more entertaining to watch the detectives running around than staying in the same room for most of the episode.  And, admittedly, I didn’t see one or two of these twists coming, even though I knew I should’ve been watching for them.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Ten - The Cast & Guest Stars

Season Ten, and the show still has over forty episodes to go.  Honestly, I'm not sure who was even running the series at this point.  Reports had Steven Bochco moving away from his daily duties on the show, which I suppose left Mark Tinker as the man in charge.  Matt Olmstead and Nicholas Wootton also have co-executive producer credits, so perhaps they were the daily showrunners.  Nicholas Wootton has been a writer on the show for years, and his scripts tend to stand out as the strongest ones of the year.  Matt Olmstead, conversely, tends to write lighter episodes, and his name is on the script with the horrendous Grease seduction scene from last year, so I'm probably carrying at least a slight bias towards his work...

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Nine - The Wrap-Up

One hallmark of the David Milch era is the extended suspect interview, which had the detectives searching for whatever angle that could convince a criminal to put down on paper two things -- I was there, and I did it.  All of the "get your side of the story out there" or "we'll get you a good deal with the DA" talk is merely a ploy to get those two facts down on paper.  This is largely inspired by Bill Clark's true tales of The Job, and Milch certainly seemed to enjoy writing these extended dialogue sequences.  The fact that they only required one set was also, I'm going to assume, a benefit for a man who liked to write the scripts on the day they were actually filmed.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Nine - The Stars & Guest Stars

Season Nine saw David Milch without even a token credit on the show, and to be honest, I initially planned on handling the post-Milch years with maybe a brief overview of each season and simply moving on.  However, there's plenty to write about this year -- not only are these the episodes that aired immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, but they also see the introduction of Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the series' new co-star.  And with Steven Bochco inserting even more of his influence over the series, there is a noticeable change in the structure of the stories.  All of this is worthy of discussion, so no quickie wrap-up this time.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Eight - The Wrap-Up

I can remember actually being relieved when I discovered David Milch wasn’t going to be running Blue for its eighth season.  At the time, the archly constructed, idiosyncratic dialogue was getting on my nerves, and I figured giving the characters more realistic speech patterns would be a welcome relief.  (I didn’t know at this point that the dialogue was at least partially inspired by retired detective Bill Clark.)

Now, re-watching the episodes, I find myself missing Milch’s scripts.  I appreciate the poetry in those uniquely crafted sentences a lot more today, and recognize the amount of work Milch was putting into those words.  A character couldn’t just say, “Are you nuts?”, he had to respond “You think I been occupied by some strange spirit?”  (Sipowicz’s answer when Diane asked him once if he’d like a carton of yogurt.)  This year, the characters do speak as real people, but many of their lines are simply bland.  Milch dialogue, as cumbersome as it might’ve been at times, brought an identity to the show and a demand of the audience to pay attention to each riddle of a sentence.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Eight - The Cast & Guest Stars

Before the launch of the seventh season of NYPD Blue, David Milch announced he’d be stepping back from the show.  Few believed him, and with good reason.  Even though Mark Tinker was added as an executive producer to help with the burden, Milch stuck around for the entire year as showrunner and has a writing credit on most of the episodes.  Milch was intrinsically linked to the show, and the idea of him casually walking away seemed unlikely.

Milch made the same announcement before the start of Season Eight.  And he meant it this time.  (This makes the Season Seven finale more poignant, especially in regards to Sipowicz and the crisis of faith displayed in the episode.)  With the nebulous credit of “Executive Consultant,” Milch still had an official title on the show, but the majority of his time was spent developing his new CBS series Big Apple.  What exactly Milch contributed to this year remains unclear.  The dialogue clearly isn’t his -- as Steven Bochco declared when he returned to daily duties on the show this season, “That's Milch-speak… We don't know how to do Milch-speak, so we have to do some other kind of speak. There's no question the tone of the show is altered because of that.”

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Seven, The Wrap-Up

The only season of the show that truly has a season-long arc is the first, although Season Seven comes pretty close with the extended drama of the Kirkendall family.  I sincerely doubt this was a plan; it seems as if David Milch had wrapped up Jill’s story with the death of her ex-husband, and was content to then move on with other ideas for the rest of the year.

Then, Andrea Thompson announced she was leaving the show.

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Seven, Cast and Guest Stars

Does anyone remember the Sela Ward drama Once and Again?  I don’t, but I do know that it’s responsible for the seventh season of NYPD Blue debuting in January 2000 instead of its normal Fall premiere date.  The deal Steven Bochco struck with the network, which wanted to permanently grant the struggling drama Blue’s time slot, was for Blue to stay on Tuesdays at 10:00, but to debut months later in the midseason.

Another drama signified more of an existential threat to the series -- by the end of 1999, The Sopranos had debuted on HBO, soaking up all of the critical accolades that used to belong to Blue.  Even though NYPD Blue did manage to defeat the Sopranos pilot for an Emmy this year, the writing was already on the wall.  Prestige programs had moved on to pay cable, and the shows critics and TV snobs wanted to dissect and discuss weren’t going to be on network TV anymore.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Six -- The Wrap-Up

Season Six is the most ambitious season of the series since Season One; that much is hard to deny.  Ranking the season amongst the previous years is difficult, given that there’s so much to process, and it’s unlikely that any fan of the show wanted those two beloved, well-established characters to die.  Even if the execution is flawless, the producers are put in the position of doing something that no one really wants them to do.  And although this isn’t the show’s final season -- it’s not even David Milch’s final season -- you do get the sense that this entire year was written as a goodbye.

If I had to rank the seasons, based on quality, I’d place Season Six at around the middle.  It’s a noticeable improvement over Season Five, and it’s likely ahead of Season Four.  (Seasons One and Three remain my favorites, with Season Two floating around the middle, as well.)  There’s one caveat to this season, however -- Rick Schroeder just isn’t very good.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Six -- Guest Stars & Stray Thoughts

In the years that follow, Deadwood will become famous amongst its fans for David Milch’s ability to turn its bit players into genuine stars of the series.  Season Six of NYPD Blue shows Milch’s early inclination to do this, as characters who have previously spoken only a few lines of dialogue begin to force their way into the stories and shape the direction of the series.  If you were one of the NYPD Blue regulars who witnessed your role diminished so that these bit players can move into the spotlight, this probably didn’t make you very happy.  For the viewers, however, it adds an element of unpredictability and realism to the series.

The Milch Studies: NYPD Blue, Season Six -- The (Remaining) Cast

Season Five received some criticism for going through the motions and coasting on the show’s established reputation.  Season Six is…certainly not Season Five.  It brings us around six dream/fantasy sequences (in the past five seasons combined, the show has only presented one), shakes up the cast in an irrevocable fashion, has more crying scenes and emotional breakdowns than ever before, and kills off four established characters.  Two of them, major stars of the series that leave a noticeable hole.

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Five, The Wrap-Up

By 1997, NYPD Blue had been a solid hit for four years, leaving Steven Bochco and David Milch as in-demand TV producers, with offers coming in from every network.  Fall 1997 saw the debut of two new Milch/Bochco co-creations, Total Security on ABC and Brooklyn South on CBS.  Total Security didn’t even air the contracted thirteen episodes, and died a quiet death on Saturday evening television.  I have only a vague idea of what the show was supposed to be about, and I doubt there’s anywhere online where you can watch the series.  The opening credits are on Youtube, however, and boy does this show look horrific.  (It did feature Dexter’s dad, though.)

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Five, The Cast & Guest Stars

There’s no getting around it, Season Five of NYPD Blue is the weakest season so far.  The series, which began as a character drama with some procedural elements, is now firmly a procedural, hitting virtually the same beats at the same time each episode.  It’s a show about cops chasing crooks, and for maybe two minutes an episode we’re granted a brief look into their personal lives.  Were it not for the utilitarian look of the show, and the unique rhythm of David Milch’s scripts, it’d be hard to distinguish this season from the 1,000 other crime procedurals currently airing on CBS.  Okay, maybe that is a little harsh...

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Four, Wrap-Up

A still from NYPD Green

Season Three was undeniably a good season; perhaps even a contender with the legendary opening year.  Season Four…is Okay TV for the most part, but the drop in quality is noticeable.  Some of the storylines are recycled from previous episodes (sometimes within the same season; notice that the beginning and end of the season both involve detectives reluctantly taking undercover assignments), and the number of recycled actors is also hard to forgive.

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Four, The Cast & Guest Stars

I’m sure if the producers knew NYPD Blue would last for twelve seasons, the major death at the end of the previous year would’ve been reserved for later in the show’s run.  Season Four sees the series inching closer towards a rigid formula, although a few standout episodes (usually the ones co-written by David Mills) successfully defy our expectations of what a Blue episode can be.

The Milch Studies - NYPD Blue Season Three, Wrap-Up

Following an uneven second season, NYPD Blue could have gone in any direction in Season Three.  Bochco and Milch could’ve made the call to keep pushing the limits of network television, or simply allowed the show to lose its rough edges and evolve into a generic weekly procedural.  With Season Three, they’ve found a nice balance.  Not every episode is The Most Important Show You’ll Watch All Year, some are relatively straightforward stories of cops chasing crooks, but when the series decides not to play it safe, it fully commits.  Again, I feel silly mentioning spoilers for something that aired twenty years ago, but if you don’t want to be spoiled about an important death, be warned.