After this week, the beat will go on no longer for the police detectives of New York’s 15th Precinct.
The much-honored ABC drama series “NYPD Blue” ends its sometimes-controversial 12-year run Tuesday, as an hourlong retrospective precedes the final episode. The event caps a re-energized year for executive producer Steven Bochco’s show, encompassing the moral fall and rise of Detective John Clark (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), the strict command of by-the-book Lt. Thomas Bale (Currie Graham), and the recent promotion of series backbone Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) from detective to sergeant.
“I have to say the transition Sipowicz has been going through in these last few episodes has been difficult for me to handle,” four-time Emmy winner Franz says. “The fact that he passed the sergeant’s exam, and where he’s gone since then, has been an adjustment. We’re playing an older Sipowicz who’s looking toward the next step in his life and recognizing he’s not the same man he was.”
The end of “NYPD Blue” has been known for some time, but that hasn’t made it any easier for Franz. “I had sort of lulled myself into a false sense of permanence,” he says. “I thought the show would be around forever, I’d be with it forever, and that was that.
“I had a conversation with Steven two years ago about running (a total of) 12 years, so that was our goal. The reality of this only set in a few weeks ago, when we filmed one particular scene. That choked me up so, it all hit me in the face.” For the purpose of maintaining surprises that may yet come, Franz declines to specify the scene.
Viewers now know about wardrobe malfunctions and “Sopranos”-level language and violence, but in 1993, “NYPD Blue” premiered in a television environment where the show’s occasional nudity and four-letter words became lightning rods for attention and criticism.
“I feel that in the world of broadcast television, I would not be able to sell ‘NYPD Blue’ today,” Bochco says. “You never like to have the feeling you’re getting your wings clipped, but you don’t get the toothpaste back in the tube. This medium is much more sophisticated than it was 10 years ago. Things get a little more conservative and a little scarier, but inevitably, it all changes. It has to.”
Fans shouldn’t expect explosions or other stunts in the final “Blue” hour. Bochco has long known how he wanted the series to end, so he and his staff worked backward from there — but Sipowicz is sure to be pivotal to whatever happens in the last scene.
“I’ve said for years that Dennis was the heart and soul of the show,” Bochco states. “At a certain point, you realized if Dennis went, the show went … and we all embraced that. If ABC suddenly said, ‘We’re having second thoughts and we’d like the show back, but we’d like it younger,’ I wouldn’t do it. I would not lose that guy. He’s just too special.”
Bochco may be losing the ABC show he’s had for a dozen years, but he’s keeping the time slot. His new police drama, “Blind Justice,” debuts there on Tuesday, March 8.
