Hill Street Blues was the Best Television Show of the 1980s

Choosing my favorite TV show from the 1980s turned out to be quite a difficult task. My first thoughts were of Cheers, Magnum PI, Miami Vice, and Family Ties. Then more shows entered my head, Murder, She Wrote, Benson, McGyver and Quantum Leap. Kate and Allie, Spenser for Hire, A-Team, Full House, Golden Girls, Perfect Strangers, St. Elsewhere, Doogie Howser, Who's the Boss, Charles in Charge, Empty Nest, Too Close for Comfort, Crazy Like a Fox and I feel like I could go on forever. Television in the 80s wasn't like TV today. We had a wide variety of shows to choose from. Some lasted several years while others lasted only a season, maybe two. I couldn't begin to name all the shows I watched during the 80s but I did have quite a few favorites.

However, in 1981 a TV show aired in January with most episodes on Friday or Saturday night at 10 p.m. Eastern called Hill Street Blues. The show was like no other show at the time. The story lines were cutting edge, almost gritty and dealt with real life issues with some very real life language. In a normal series during that time you might follow a few characters and generally each episode would have a situation that was cleanly dealt with during that episode. With Hill Street Blues however, you were introduced to and followed maybe 20 characters. Most were police officers of varying rank including plain clothes and undercover detectives. The precinct captain was currently married to a public defender and his ex-wife worked at the station. The show featured interwoven plot lines that one would expect would take place in daily life at a busy metropolitan police station. Hill Street Blues also incorporated the police officer's private lives into the show. I think it may have been the first time a show let us into the private life of an officer and how that impacted the job performance and also the ethics of that officer.

The show used more close action filming than had been previously used for filming a television show other than maybe a documentary. The camera might be focused on a discussion between two characters but you could still hear all the background noise, bits and pieces of other conversations off-screen so you knew other action was taking place at the same time.

The show generally began with all the officers filing into a large room where roll call was taken, assignments were given out and lots of good natured ribbing between people who clearly spent a great deal of time together. They didn't always like each other but you knew they had seen a lot and been through a lot as police officers.

In real life at that time our nation had just come through the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the energy crisis, the Iran hostage crisis and we were just seeing the beginning of the end of the economic recession that had plagued us for several years. Hill Street Blues portrayed the effects of many of those real life issues by giving us glimpses of inner city conflicts involving the poor, the unemployed and the poorly educated. The show even introduced us to gangs and gang violence.

Everyone has an opinion on their favorite television show. Although I haven't watched Hill Street Blues for a long time, it remains a favorite of mine. Any show that can get an 18 year old home on a weekend night by 10 p.m. so they didn't miss the latest episode must have been a terrific show.