NBC’s Era-Defining 7-Part Crime Procedural Was Built To Last
Cher Thompson is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, where she covers everything from explosive reality TV moments to cast interviews about the twists and turns of scripted dramas. With a background in creative writing, marketing, and teaching, Cher knows how to spot both the storytelling genius and the guilty pleasures in pop culture. Her work blends wit with insight, making readers feel like they’re chatting with a friend who just happens to know way too much about TV.
As a network, NBC has built a reputation as a powerhouse when it comes to procedural storytelling, including a classic series that helped shape what the network’s future would look like from its start. The network’s reputation didn’t happen overnight by any means. Long before audiences got used to and expected the sprawling TV universes that most networks have come to be known for, NBC was one of the industry’s most reliable homes for cutting-edge crime dramas, intense legal shows, and character-driven procedurals. Today’s biggest hits, like the One Chicago franchise, have been informed by classics that came before it.
NBC’s success has shaped the modern TV landscape when it comes to crime shows, specifically procedurals, more than any other network over the past several decades. With the best shows in the genre still taking cues from past hits of the network, NBC’s influence on procedural TV didn’t start with a single hit, but one classic hit of the 1980s stands above the rest, maintaining a high level of quality and reinventing what the procedural could be. Hill Street Blues, which aired for seven seasons on NBC from 1981 through 1987, avoided common procedural pitfalls, cementing its place in history.
As one of the most influential and important TV procedurals ever created, Hill Street Blues was a groundbreaking show that paved the way for the genre as it continued over time. Despite beginning over 40 years ago, Hill Street Blues is still a series that’s influencing the way procedurals move.
NBC’s Hill Street Blues Was Consistently Outstanding Across Its 7 Seasons
Premiering in January 1981, Hill Street Blues was a groundbreaking series in many ways, despite having some rocky beginnings. Created by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, the series took a new approach to crime dramas, focusing on the officers and detectives of a fictional urban police precinct on the titular Hill Street. While other procedurals of the era were only focused on criminal investigations, Hill Street Blues dove into its characters, looking at them as complicated and three-dimensional people rather than archetypes as they did their work. By broadening its scope, Hill Street Blues redefined what a procedural could be.
With a diverse ensemble that brought together actors from different backgrounds and stories that dove head-first into stories that went against the grain, Hill Street Blues pulled away from the idea of a singular main hero. Instead, the series brought together different groups of actors, used overlapping storylines, and took advantage of the handheld camera to make viewers feel like they were getting in on the gritty action of the series. Hill Street Blues was able to maintain a consistently high quality of intense storytelling throughout its run, which made it not only critically successful, but kept viewers coming back.
The Legacy Of Hill Street Blues Is Felt Across TV Crime Procedurals Today
Hill Street Blues was on the air during a time when police procedurals were defined in a specific light. Viewers expected to see a heroic officer or detective at its core, cases that were fairly plainly laid out and predictable, and stories that didn’t necessarily develop much of the character’s lives beyond their work. Hill Street Blues shattered that narrative, and went on to change the genre as a whole as it continued over the course of its run. With its in-depth character-driven stories, the officers of the series became intense, complicated, and morally gray rather than solely heroic.
The series influenced the way that procedurals would both be written and filmed as the genre continued to grow. Rather than simply using a case-of-the-week structure, the series chose to treat TV as long-form storytelling, which pushed other procedurals to move from entirely episodic shows to more serialized stories. Hill Street Blues also paved the way for more stylistic stories in a procedural setting, bringing in more personal stakes for the characters and allowing the narratives to be less cut and dry than its predecessors. More than 40 years after its debut, Hill Street Blues has inspired the entire genre.
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