NYPD Blue is an American police procedural television series set in New York City, exploring the struggles of the fictional 15th Precinct detective squad in Manhattan.

[2] NYPD Blue was met with critical acclaim, praised for its grittiness and realistic portrayal of the cast's personal and professional lives.

[5] The 90-minute versions of "Lost Israel, Part 2," "Honeymoon at Viagra Falls," and "Hearts and Souls" were not included in this project and are available only on the DVD releases, as standard definition 4:3 episodes.

The theme begins with a percussion arrangement reminiscent of the sound of a New York City subway train departing a station and then proceeds to an oboe-dominated melody influenced by the Irish-American music used at NYPD ceremonies.

By Season 7, each episode began with a fast-paced montage of typical Manhattan street scenes unrelated to the show's characters, scored with an increasingly complex combination of scat singing and instrumental music riffing on the main theme.

Sipowicz is the elder partner, but is an alcoholic who drinks on the job, as well as off duty, and his behavior causes doubt that the partnership will last much longer.

While Sipowicz is recuperating, the squad's lieutenant, Arthur Fancy, teams Kelly with a young cop from Anticrime, James Martinez.

Because of Kelly's involvement with Licalsi, and the widely held belief that he withheld evidence that could have given her a longer sentence, he is transferred out of the 15th to working as a dispatcher and subsequently chooses to leave the department altogether.

After an affair with a journalist whom he suspects has used information that he disclosed to her after an intimate moment to boost her career, Simone begins a relationship with another new member of the squad, Diane Russell.

After James is shot, recovers, and returns to work, and Lesniak and he get to know each other, she admits that the story she told Medavoy was a lie.

During the next two seasons, a few minor cast changes are made: Donna is replaced by several PAAs, most notably by Gina Colon (played by Lourdes Benedicto), who eventually marries Martinez and is written out; and Det.

Sipowicz's battle with prostate cancer and the up-and-down Simone/Russell relationship, which includes Russell's revelation that she had been sexually abused by her father, are prominent storylines.

The Sorenson character was written out at the start of season nine, at Schroder's request; he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Producers were not convinced about Marcil, and made her character a one-time guest role, then continued casting until they hired Obradors.

This came about due to her ability to stand up to Sipowicz's gruffness, and her tender relationship with Theo (played by Austin Majors).

Pat Fraker shot and nearly killed him in a drunken rage, then was acquitted; the acquittal, combined with him not making the Captain's promotion list, caused him to retire and take a lucrative job in private security.

Eddie Gibson, played by former NYPD officer John F. O'Donohue, replaced Lt. Rodriguez as Squad Commander.

Haywood, after failing to convict Fraker for Rodriguez's shooting, appeared in fewer episodes and then left at the end of the 11th season.

Kelly Ronson, played by Jessalyn Gilsig, replaced McDowell and appeared in a handful of episodes in the closing stretch of Season 11.

The series finale introduced two new young detectives named Quinn and Slovak, who echoed the first days of Irish-American Kelly and Polish-American Sipowicz.

[11] 29 of the affiliates eventually saw the show's ratings overrule their moral objections and began to air it by the time the third season started.

In 2005, L. Brent Bozell III told TIME that the nudity on the series influenced him to establish the Parents Television Council, for which he served as president from 1995 to 2006.

[12] The PTC has directly criticized several episodes of the show for perceived vulgarity[13][14][15] and filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the use of obscene language in several episodes aired in early 2003, at the last half of the 10th season of the show,[16] associating the series with a perceived increase in profanity[17] and violence[18] on prime-time television from the late 1990s to early 2000s.

[19] However, on January 25, 2008, the FCC fined ABC $1.4 million for the episode "Nude Awakening" (airdate February 25, 2003), due to scenes of "adult sexual nudity".

[21] According to NYPD Blue: A Final Tribute, a retrospective broadcast aired the same night as the last episode, the controversy was not limited to what was on the screen.

[25][26] His personal problems and "exhaustion" over the lengthy production of the episodes caused him to leave the series after the seventh season.

[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] In Region 2, Mediumrare acquired the rights to release the remaining eight seasons of the show on DVD in the United Kingdom.

TV reviewer and author Alan Sepinwall informally began his career by blogging recaps and analyses of NYPD Blue episodes.

[80] The pilot is a co-production between 20th Century Fox TV, which was behind the original series, and ABC Studios, and producers were casting its four main roles at the time of the announcement.

The storyline would revolve around the murder of Andy Sipowicz, with his son Theo as a uniformed police officer who works to earn promotion to detective while investigating his father's killing.