One of the greatest television shows of all time, “Hill Street Blues” was first broadcast on this day in 1981. In its first season, it won eight Emmy awards (a record not beaten until “The West Wing”‘s first season) – and it would go on to be nominated 98 times over the seven seasons it ran. It was a weird blend of cop show and soap opera, with a level of realism little seen in either genre before that time.
It set new benchmarks in television drama, broadening the possibilities of the form – it is reasonable to think that such later shows as “The Sopranos”, “The West Wing” and most especially, “The Wire”, might never have happened without the trail that it blazed.
