I broke into television criticism because of my love for a show about a racist, sexist, alcoholic cop who used the N-word and beat confessions out of suspects. I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the past few months.

Related: 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

In the fall of 1993, the hottest show on TV was ABC’s NYPD Blue. It had been promoted as the first truly adult drama in the history of the medium, with words that had never been said and body parts that had