Best police drama ever, IMO.

The critics got the vapors over this show, and maybe deservedly so. I never got into it, so I am not the best judge. I watched a few episodes, but my interest in network television was flagging at that time so it never caught with me.

I was in HS when this was on and I really liked it ~ if I was home enough to watch it ~ HAHA! I do appreciate it more NOW though and have the first 2 seasons on DVD. Still waitin for the rest of the seasons.....

A really good cop show, that was ahead of it's time. Without it, there would be no Law and Order or NYPD Blue.

Raised the bar for police dramas.

The Cop show that gave birth to NYPD Blue and the Shield. Cutting edge drama for its time. Not afraid to takle some tough issues.

I was too young when this show was at its zenith. But watching a few episodes on DVD recently, I think Hill Street Blues easily rivals later police drama movies like NYPD Blue and Law & Order. Complete with an ensemble cast, Hill Street Blues great intertwining storylines, and not to mention an unforgettable theme tune by Mike Post- the documentary-feel was one of the greatest shows of all-time (as it was a perennial primetime Emmy winner).

If you didn't watch this, you were missing one of the most well-written, well-cast, and well-performed shows of the past 25 years. Excellent...

All very worthy, well put together blah di blah. Just didnt float the old boat.

Very very underrated show. May have been too intelligent for a lot of Americans, for whom trashy sitcoms, talk shows, and nighttime soaps were their main television diet...

Probably, technically, and outstanding show, but it never eally did appeal to me.

A rare bright spot of intelligent programming in a lost decade.

it was a breakthrough show with the subjects closer to reality than other shows before it.

One of the better shows of its era, well acted and scripted and willing to write characters out, so it was less predictable than most.

This is truly a classic show. I didn't watch it regularly but always liked it when I did.

One of the best cop shows ever on tv. Gritty, realistic, with a top notch cast. Not my favorite cop show, but a remarkable and memorable one.

I didn't like this show.

Beat show on TV ever! Rare in quality, acting, writing...it was a GREAT show.

This show was always good, often great. Some episodes were so spellbinding, I would still be staring stunned at my TV screen several minutes after the show had ended and I'd turned the tube off...

This is that rarest of rarities, a show that was so innovative, on so many levels, that it not only indelibly influenced its genre, it literally changed the way we watch television. It is, without exaggeration, the single most influential television drama of the last 25 years. Before HSB, TV cop shows held to a strict one-hour (or half-hour, in the case of DRAGNET and ADAM-12) story structure. No loose ends were ever left untied at the end of that hour. Though characters often had strong personalities and sometimes even love lives, they didn't get to live much of those lives onscreen. Cops, lawyers and (especially) doctors never made stupid mistakes, displayed irrational prejudices, or otherwise screwed up, nor did the effects of one show's traumas ever carry over into subsequent episodes. Characters might age, but they did not change. With HSB, Steve Bochco changed all that. He introduced the multi-episode story arc, until then strictly a soap opera convention. This technique allowed for a more realistic rhythm and also allowed characters (and their relationships with each other) to grow and change. Bochco also innovated in creating multidimensional characters -- never before had cops in a police show been shown in all their flawed humanity. Stylistic innovations included the use of authentically gritty set and sound design, handheld camera and steadicam use, and inclusion of comic-relief elements that bordered on farce (David E. Kelley would later take this innovation and run off a cliff with it.) The first show to display the HSB influence was ST. ELSEWHERE, the granddaddy of today's ER. I had occasion to talk with one of its creators, Tom Fontana (OZ) shortly before its premiere. He described it as "Hill Street Blues in a hospital" (undoubtably the same phrase he had use to pitch it to the network suits) and confessed to some unease as to what the public's response would be to doctors making mistakes. He needn't have worried, of course; and now innovations which once were edgy and shocking are the industry standard -- even the throwback LAW AND ORDER franchise, which has gotten much mileage out of the old DRAGNET formula, uses many of them. Continuing and overlapping story arcs are the norm, from Bochco's own NYPD BLUE to long-format comedies like GILMORE GIRLS. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER depends so heavily on its semi-serial structure that its episodes must be watched in sequence to be fully appreciated. Before HSB, this was considered too challenging for the viewing audience; now it's expected. And every time the WEST WING's President Bartlet dances on the fuzzy gray line between moral absolutes, every time a resident on ER screws up and kills a patient, every time a character comes away from an event a changed *person*, you have Bochco and HSB to thank for it. It all started right here.

I guess the acting and the stories were pretty good, but it always managed to depress me. No one on the show seemed to crack a smile.

This is the Cheers for prime time dramas! The next time you catch this show listen to the background noise during the station house scenes, I loved the gritty realism of noise.

All credit to Bochco for stating the ensemble series trend. This was a "must see" programme.I think I must have seen every episode. Loved the characters, especially Belker.

This show got my attention right away, the acting and the story plots, Not like any other show at the time. Joyce and " the pizza man" wow. Lets be careful out there!!.

This show was the greates cop series ever. It told the true story of what a cops life was like.

This was a pretty engaging cop/lawyer drama with an overall quality on the same level as the more recent "Law and Order". One of the big differences with the two is that "Hill Street Blues" seemed to give you more information about the individual characters lives and therefore, a bit more character development. "Law and Order", on the other hand, tends to concentrate more on the details of the crime du jour and how it affects the characters at a given point in time. Hill Street's serial quality could be a reflection of its time perhaps being somewhat influenced by the the success of night-time soaps like Dallas, Dynasty and others that were still in their heyday at that point.

The character development on this show was the only thing holding it together.

The first of the angstridden,selfconscious dramas.This show has a lot to answer for.As"Castlebee"says,a yawn.

Of course,we're so liberated and hip over here in dear old Blighty that we watched this masterpiece at 9.00 on Thursday nights(what is it about classic TV and Thursday nights?) I was going through a bad time in the early 80s(who of my generation wasn't?), and the HSB ensemble soon became a soi-dissant surrogate family. As I always say about my fave US shows from The Fugitive through MI, M.A.S.H to Frasier:intelligent not intellectual. Cheers, Daredevil xxxx

BELKER RULES

Fast paced action, terrific repitoire of characters!

Probably my favorite drama ever on TV. As happens too often, it declined in the last year or so, mostly due to Steven Bochco's goofy need to KILL off all departing characters in tragic-style episodes. Ever count how many people in NYPD Blue's cast have been shot and or killed? C'mon!!

Every current, ensemble, one hour drama has Hill Street Blues to thank for blazing the trail. This was the first adult-type drama that I ever watched and I remember that it was a big deal that my parents would let me stay up until 11pm on Thursday nights to see it. It had great and memorable characters (who could forget Mick Belker), tremendous writing, quirky plot-twists (remember how they killed Michael Conrad's character), and a first class cast. It also gave us our first look at Dennis Franz as Detective Bunz. It's too bad that HSB isn't currently running in reruns on any mainstream channels.