I was lucky enough to be able to follow this show from the beginning, and it was truly unlike any police show that had been on TV up to that point. When Hill Street premiered in January 1981, cable had just begun to become available to most homes, and so most cop shows up to that point had been network fare looking for mass appeal that were either overserious ala "Dragnet", comical ala "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Car 54", or just over the top ala "The Mod Squad".
Hill Street was completely different. It showed the hopeless poverty of those living in the run-down Hill Street precinct, the shaken rape victims immediately after the crime, the ups and downs of the various partnerships among the officers, and the personal lives of the members of the force. The only brave act Hill Street never performed was actually NAMING the city in which the drama was playing out. With all of the snow, the entrenched bureaucracy, and with neighborhoods with names such as "Midtown", I can only imagine this must have been New York City, but for some reason producer Bochco never actually named the location.
The series was one of the first to regularly employ hand-held cameras to give the show a fly-on-the-wall, documentary feel, but this technique was not overused. Also, the show pulled no punches on the personal lives of the characters. During the first season LaRue descends from a somewhat slimy charmer to a completely pickled bum, and Hill and Renko's doubts and fears after being gunned down help to humanize roles that up to that time had often been wrapped up in macho posturing.
One of the lighter sides of season one is forty-something Phil Esterhaus trying to decide between his eighteen year old girlfriend Cindy and the fortiesh and erotic Grace Gardner who is trying to make up for lost time at a pace that would probably even seem extreme to Hugh Hefner. Another funny moment is when Esterhaus ends roll call by saying that he has been ordered to inspect the officers for "unusual weapons." The cops bring out hunting knives, switchblades, and sawed-off shotguns, throwing them on a table. As Esterhaus continues his announcements, the officers return their brass knuckles and other contraband weapons to their pockets. Comedy sometimes turns to tragedy, though, such as when Belker keeps apprehending a fellow who thinks he is a comic book crimefighter and when asked for his name keeps giving his comic book name. Eventually, though, the caped crimefighter runs across a criminal who doesn't get the joke and he is killed.
The one aspect of Hill Street that never really made sense to me was the couple of Frank Furillo and Joyce Davenport. With Frank overseeing the police officers that tend to the mayhem that is the world of crime-ridden Hill Street, and Joyce as public defender doing her best to free every criminal no matter how guilty, I can't imagine why they would ever want to have anything to do with one another socially, assuming they truly believed in what they were doing on the job.
As a final point, if you haven't seen this show since it first aired 34 years ago, you're going to notice a lot of not-yet stars that were playing guest spots during this first season. These include David Caruso who later starred on Bochco's NYPD Blue, Tim Daly of "Wings", Michael Tucker of Bochco's "L.A. Law", and a young Danny Glover as a very scary gang member. I highly recommend Hill Street Blues whether you have seen it before or it is all new to you.
Just one more thing, if you are younger you may scratch your head when watching this and say - "I've seen this kind of stuff all before, nothing new here". That's because so many police procedurals patterned themselves after this show that this technique is no longer new, but in 1981 it was ground breaking, the granddaddy of what you watch today.
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