Feeling blue: ‘NYPD Blue’ ends 12-year run

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Two one-time kid actors joined the squad, with Rick Schroder (“Silver Spoons”) followed by Mark-Paul Gosselaar (“Saved by the Bell”). “NYPD Blue” was so sturdy it absorbed the oddball casting and gave the newcomers a chance to shine.

Besides Franz, Gordon Clapp was the only other featured cast member on hand from the beginning, providing a welcome sense of continuity as schlubby Detective Greg Medavoy.

Compelling in their blemished individuality, the detectives stood for something larger.

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“What I thought we always focused on was fleshing out the men and women who do police work for a living as having vulnerabilities, having flaws, having home lives, having losses, tragedies,” Franz said. “I also think we paid respects to the difficulty of police work and the effects the job can have on individuals,” he said.

Heading for the desk
In the season so far, Sipowicz has assessed his life at midpoint and reluctantly made the jump up to sergeant and a desk job.

Is that where his journey, and the show, ends?

Bochco said “NYPD Blue” will conclude without a bang, and he means that literally: A contrived and melodramatic finale was quickly ruled out.

“You don’t want a bomb to go off in the building,” he said. “What we finally settled on was to try to end this show in a way that implies that the life of the precinct doesn’t end. It’s just that you don’t get to visit it every week.”

Franz, 60, is ready to try something new, maybe even a movie comedy. “I spent all my 50s here. I’m the most appreciative guy on earth for this opportunity. It was wonderful, but it’s time to move on now.”

As for the series’ ultimate impact, Bochco suggests it may have helped fuel the backlash against changing cultural standards. The reaction was building, he said, with the 2004 Super Bowl just the tipping point.

“That said, in the long view, you just can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” he said. “It’s not going to happen, notwithstanding the fact that broadcast television in these days has become an extremely conservative and frightened medium.”

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