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Comparing two old cop shows made me realize how much better Hill Street Blues was | Forgotten TV Shows - nhfree.com

Comparing two old cop shows made me realize how much better Hill Street Blues was

I was bored last weekend and decided to watch an episode of T.J. Hooker from 1983 and then an episode of Hill Street Blues from 1981 back to back. The difference was wild. Hooker had all these clean shootouts and neat endings where everything got wrapped up with a bow. But Hill Street Blues felt messy and real like actual police work where cases overlap and people make mistakes. The characters on Hill Street had complicated lives and talked over each other just like real conversations. Hooker felt like a commercial for being a cop while Hill Street felt like a documentary about being human. I think the shaky handheld camera work and the failing relationships made it feel way more honest. Has anyone else gone back and compared two old shows from the same era and been surprised by which one holds up?

3 comments

3 Comments

andrew7784mo ago

Honestly, that "overlapping radio chatter" point is key. If you want to see if a show holds up, just watch one of those scenes with the sound off, if the visuals still feel hectic and real then the show's got legs.

andrew8545mo ago

My uncle was a cop in the 80s and he always said Hill Street Blues was the only show that got the radio chatter right, all that overlapping static and people cutting each other off. He'd watch it with this annoyed look on his face because it reminded him of the station bullpen, but he never missed an episode. Hooker was apparently the kind of cop show the higher-ups wanted people to believe in, but Hill Street was what the guys on the beat actually lived through.

noah_webb5mo ago

Gotta push back a little on the Hill Street Blues thing. Honestly, the overlapping radio chatter was groundbreaking for TV, but your uncle might be misremembering a bit. The show actually polished a lot of that for dramatic effect, real police radio in the 80s was way more chaotic and less coherent than what you heard on screen. Yeah, they nailed the feeling of constant noise and people talking over each other, but it wasn't a perfect 1:1 copy. Still, compared to Hooker or CHiPs, Hill Street was like a documentary, I'll give it that.