I remember when I was a kid one of my favorite television shoes was Hill Street Blues (I bet you'd expected care bears). It was one of the few television shows that had real action in it. It featured what cops in New York City were up against every time they started their beat. It may start out slow but things get complicated as the episode unfolds. I also liked the theme song of the series by Mike Post.
Going back to the show, what I liked about it is that it gave viewers a glimpse of what cops deal with when they start their shift and although things are a bit slow during the briefing, things start to get rough. Although nobody cussed during an episode, the violence was ahead of its time. It was gritty and almost realistic as well as some of the situations that these guys go through. Some handle the pressure while others get overwhelmed by it and it's something I can relate to.
These days if you want to see something gritty, you watch it on cable. For a television show, characters really push the envelope. It also spawned a lot of cop shows that took what it created a step further and that's no understatement. Still, what was great about this show is that it was able to show all these things under a lot of restrictions at the time. Now that's creativity under pressure.
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