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Show IINFOCUSl Abridged 'Hill Street Blues' By STEVEN BOCHCO and MICHAEL KOZOLL When NBC asked us to do a cop show, we said no. They said, come to lunch. We asked where. They said La Sea la. So we went. Over the fettucini, we gave them several thousand rea-. violent, too sexy, too grim. We agreed, and said that's what we liked about it. Fortunately, that's what Fred Silverman liked about it too, and he said try it. We did. Howard Rosenberg of The Los Angeles Times said " 'Hill Street Blues' is the most promising TV drama I've seen in years. David Black of Glamour magazine said, " 'Hill Street Blues' is not only excellent in terms of the other offerings of this season, but compares well to the best shows that have sons why traditional cop shows, no matter how artfully executed, had virtually no chance of success. Nevertheless Neverthe-less they persisted. They gave us carte blanche to break the mold. We said we'd think about it. Our combined background totaled over 20 years in film and television and included such shows as "Columbo," "McMillan and Wife," "Quincy," "Delvecchio," "Kojak, "Richie Brocket-man" Brocket-man" and "Paris." Whether successful or not, each of us vowed after each venture never nev-er to do another cop show. ever been broadcast. There is hope for television as long as every season can produce even one show like 'Hill Street Blues.' " William H. Lynn, senior vice president of advertising's KM&G International, Inc., a well known industry prognos-ticator, prognos-ticator, said of "Hill Street Blues": "This dramatic police series combines sensitivity and humor to provide one of the most realistic and human portrayals of a police force in action ever produced. A 25 percent share of audience is predicted, making this program pro-gram a failure." Needless to say, we hope we do considerably better, but win, lose or draw, neither of us will ever do another cop show. Then we got to thinking, what about a cop show that featured cops' personal lives the stressful effects of working in a hostile ghetto environment. Then we said, this is too serious. So we asked ourselves how can we handle essentially serious themes in a not-so-serious way? The answer was, make it funny too. What we wound up with was "Hill Street Blues." Rather than a whodunit, or will-he-get-way-with-it, "Hill Street Blues" is an hour drama dra-ma with 13 continuing characters charac-ters living through a Gordian knot of personal and professional profes-sional relationships. NBC programmers said ; they loved it. NBC Broadcast Standards said we couldn't do it. They said it was too |