I’ve always been more of a movie enthusiast than a television fan, but occasionally I’ll find a show that strikes me just right.

When I started watching NYPD Blue three months ago, I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it. I’ve generally like police dramas, and Steven Bochco was the producer of Hill Street Blues, a show I haven’t exactly been shy about fawning over to anyone who will listen.

Still, as a native Midwesterner (with certain sensibilities uncorrupted from living on the West Coast, I might add), I’m immediately suspicious of anything with “New York” emblazoned on it - the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Times, or especially the New York Yankees.

For whatever reason that may someday make itself apparent to my great-grandchildren, New York has managed to project it’s self-importance across the entire continent to Southern California. I see people walking around in Yankees caps and New York tourist attire, people who obviously have spent less than a month in that city. Next to Los Angeles, New York seems to be the destination of choice for individuals who are looking to make it big, be that individual an aspiring dancer, musician, or Garrison Keillor. I don’t begrudge New York the influx in population, but I do take issue with New York being portrayed as some sort of Land of the Gods that the rest of the country should be forced to daily genuflect in homage of.

Thankfully, NYPD Blue has been exactly the opposite of the show I thought it might be.

It has many of the features of a Bochco show, features I have come to enjoy. Chief among these is a large and diverse regular cast of characters, all written with an exacting eye for detail and developed in miniature story arcs that wax and wane throughout the seasons. Bit characters are never throwaways; not only do the actors who play them do so with conviction, but one never knows if a bit character will be elevated into a minor character as the storyline progresses.

Something else I appreciate is that NYPD Blue is an extremely serious drama. Two of the main characters from Season Two are recovering alcoholics, one is a widower, and another has a marriage barely clinging to existence. Each personal problem is examined in context, not glossed over, giving the characters humanity and depth. The show avoids being preachy by presenting the characters’ actions factually, allowing the viewer to make a judgment instead of the producer or director forcing one into the story.

The first television drama I can remember latching onto was Gunsmoke, obviously one I experienced via syndicated reruns. I can remember watching them on a tiny 10-inch black and white television set with my dad, catching them over the nighttime air in Trempealeau from WKBT in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Considering that my other favorite TV show at the time likely was 60 Minutes, Gunsmoke provided a great deal of entertainment while watching and loads of playtime fodder for an overactive imagination.

I loved all the characters equally except one, Marshall Matt Dillon. Marshall Dillon was Gunsmoke in my eyes, especially since most of the episodes we saw in syndication during the mid to late Eighties were from the earlier seasons. Chester was replaced by Festus, and Doc Adams was a great doctor (but only a doctor!), but Marshall Dillon was the large looming figure who shot the bad guy in the opening credits, protected the town throughout the course of the show, and was looked up to by everyone, from Sam the Bartender to Newly, the town gunsmith. When I made Lincoln Log towns and set up my plastic cowboys inside them, Marshall Dillon was always the one I gave the place of honor to.

Shortly after I got my feet wet with Gunsmoke I came upon a show that would last me through junior high, the original Star Trek, which eventually formed a perfect storm of nerdery for me, along with the then-new spin-off, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek paved the way to nerddom for me, something that has taken me the better part of ten years to accept.

The jump from Western to Space Western was easy enough. Instead of the brave and just Marshall Matt Dillon, I had the spontaneous and forceful Captain James T. Kirk; instead of crusty Doc Adams, I had even crustier Doctor McCoy; instead of goofy and countrified Festus, I had patently ungoofy and scientific Spock. It was as clean a cut as one could ask for, and over the next ten years the epicenter of my television watching was science fiction of the Star Trek type.

As I got older, I had dalliances with other shows. CBS had a great little show starring Danny Aiello, called Dellaventura, which lasted all of one season. I hated Star Trek: Voyager and picked up watching The X-Files instead. Once the X-Files movie came out and spoiled things I quit watching that show in favor of ER, the first true ensemble drama I ever watched.

ER never fascinated me the way Gunsmoke or Star Trek did, but it did pave the way for me to pick up watching a show called Hill Street Blues. I don’t remember how I came across the show at first, but the first impression it made on me came from the opening credits with that great quasi-mournful Mike Post theme played against the images of a gritty industrial city. Between work and school I didn’t have much down time, but I made room for a show that was rapidly captivating me.

Of course, we know where my love of Hill Street Blues has lead me. After finishing off Season Two, which exhausted all the episodes currently released on DVD, I started looking for something else to fill the occasional hour that doesn’t see me reading or surfing baseball news. I dithered in a choice between The X-Files and NYPD Blue, finally choosing the latter because I knew both Steven Bochco and Mike Post were involved in the show.

At first, I wasn’t impressed. The theme didn’t impress me (and has yet to grow on me), but the casting was good and the stories were even better. Season One hooked me easily enough, but oddly, I didn’t like quite a few of the characters. I wasn’t sad to see the end of Amy Brenneman’s character (I’ve detested her since I first laid eyes on Judging Amy years ago), David Caruso only barely raised my pulse as Dennis Franz’s partner, and Shelly Stringfield wasn’t particularly impressive, either. Instead of mourning the early losses to the show, I’ve fallen in love with the pairing of Kim Delaney and Jimmy Smits, and have been absolutely swept off my feet by the relationship between Franz’ tough, abrasive street cop and the smart and beautiful in equal measures Greek Assistant District Attorney, played by Sharon Lawrence.

What makes this all the more delicious is that I never intended to like NYPD Blue this much. I only required a diversion from Hill Street, something that would fill the space until this fall (when the Season Three of HSB is released). Instead, I’ve wound up with a show I like as much or better than two of my previous favorites, M*A*S*H and Six Feet Under.

I might be a little strange for getting so excited about early seasons of a show that has been off the air for over a year, a show I never watched while it was originally being aired, but I feel like I’m learning something about ensemble drama by watching the show in order, something that might serve me well if I ever tackle Lost or the original Law and Order.

Best of all, and in a complete 180 from my feelings on movie spoilers, I don’t feel guilty about looking ahead to see what’s going to happen in the show. I know that big changes will eventually take place, and it’s interesting to watch the writers piece them together, sort of like playing Tetris in reverse. I know Sharon Lawrence’s character is going to die, perhaps even this season, and I know Jimmy Smits and Kim Delaney will eventually leave the show, but that makes every episode all the more valuable and interesting.

Plus, like James Arness as Matt Dillon or William Shatner as James T. Kirk, Dennis Franz/Andy Sipowicz will always be there.

I don’t watch a great deal of television. Heck, I don’t even own a television. The last time I watched a series with regularity was five and a half years ago when Six Feet Under had just entered Season Two, and Nigella Bites had captured my interest on Style. Before that, I think it was either the middle season of The X-Files or ER, but I honestly can’t remember for sure.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been watching the first season of Hill Street Blues this past week. I finished the two-part season finale this weekend, and I’m very anxiously awaiting the release of Season Two this Tuesday. I’ve even gone so far as to reserve one of the two copies my local Barnes & Noble is getting.

Unfortunately, because I finished the season earlier than I expected, I was without anything to watch this weekend. I finally exhausted my set of the Classic 39 episodes of The Honeymooners, and I really wasn’t in the mood to watch anything feature-length. I was heading to B&N to reserve my copy of HSB anyway, so I thought I might check out their selection of other shows, which actually proved to be extremely extensive and very diverse.

Looking through the racks, there was an unbelievable cross-section of classic TV. The Sir Derek Jacobi Brother Cadfael series wasn’t but a foot or two away from the first two seasons of Green Acres. The first few seasons of the original Star Trek occupied the same shelf as Moonlighting. And among seemingly hundreds of I Love Lucy DVDs was a single offering of The Merv Griffin Show. All that was missing was Newhart and Quincy, ME.

I was faced with a very difficult choice. I spied four Are You Being Served? titles, and I was incredibly tempted to buy one or two. But I knew that I wanted something with a little more dramatic substance to keep up my Hill Street fix. I eventually narrowed it down to Season One of either NYPD Blue or The X-Files, and in the end, NYPD Blue carried the day. I’m not quite certain how I feel about this, because I really like The X-Files quite a bit, but my stomach wasn’t really primed for conspiracy theories. I’ve come to appreciate the writing of NYPD Blue, and Dennis Franz definitely has the chops to carry the show, but it’s a poorer offering than Hill Street Blues. To be honest, I’d have preferred Twin Peaks.

I’ve noticed my favorite shows seem to be heavily skewed toward the ensemble cast format. My Top Six List at this point includes, in some order, the following: M*A*S*H, Fawlty Towers, The Honeymooners, Hill Street Blues, Six Feet Under, and Kung Fu. Why my Top Six? Well, those are the six shows I’ve seen fit to collect at this point. Given unlimited funds I’d probably have The Cosby Show, the original Star Trek, and a bunch of others, but those shows haven’t pushed as hard as the titles I already have. And yet, until my all-time favorite show, The Wonder Years, is released (which will probably never happen because of music royalties), my collection will be horribly incomplete.

What shows are in your Top Six?

Well, I’m in such ecstasy
When I’m watchin’ TV
I’m a boob tube devotee

I spent the majority of the day watching the first seven episodes from Season One of Hill Street Blues.  I’ve been a very big fan of the show for about five years now.  I came across reruns of it accidentally one afternoon while I was still in culinary school, about the same time I discovered Nigella Bites on the Style Network.

The influence of Hill Street Blues has been enormous.  Fans of L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, St. Elsewhere, ER, and Chicago Hope owe a lot to HSB’s trailblazing approach to ensemble drama.  Hill Street owes M*A*S*H a favor for adopting the mixture of black humor and drama, but the multiple story-arc format is unique to HSB.

One of the great things about ensemble drama is the opportunity for each viewer to develop an affinity (or loathing) for a regular character.  Hill Street hooked me from the beginning the way no other ensemble show has before or since.  I immediately came to like Detective Belker and Captain Furillo, while detesting Lieutenant Hunter.  While I still like Furillo and Belker, I’ve also come to enjoy Detective Goldblume and the Hill/Renko partnership.  The Hill/Renko story lines in particular are great, which is ironic, because those two characters were supposed to die in the pilot.  And, for the record, let me say that Joyce Davenport, played by Veronica Hamel, is an outstanding female lead.

Much has been made of the filming technique used to create the atmosphere of the show.  To create a documentary feel, everything was shot using hand-held cameras instead of the typical floor models.  What most people don’t know is that an even more revolutionary method was considered - the original plan for the show called for black-and-white filming.

In my rather extensive DVD collection, there are only six television series, M*A*S*H (Seasons 1-4 at this point, though I want to complete the set), Six Feet Under (also Seasons 1-4), Kung Fu (Seasons 1 & 2), The Honeymooners (the “Classic 39 episodes”), Fawlty Towers (all 12 episodes), and now Season One of Hill Street.  Each is different in its own way, but all are outstandingly written and have phenomenal casts.

Even luckier for me, Season Two of Hill Street Blues becomes available the 16th of this month.  If you’re at all inclined, I strongly recommend going out and picking up both seasons.  You might be surprised how well a show that debuted in 1981 holds up today.

So far, this weekend has been about returning to roots.

My friend Mike, still on post-deployment leave after his third deployment to Iraq, flew in on Friday night.  Today we went out for lunch to our old haunt, the 101 Cafe, the first time we’ve been there together since he left last September.  I went a couple of times when he was gone, but it just wasn’t the same 101.

We talked quite a bit about food and cooking - Mike’s oldest brother, Tom, is going to another Cordon Bleu school -  and I got to thinking about how fun it would be to run a place the size of the 101 (a ten-seat counter and ten booths).  Not a diner, perhaps, but something a bit more gourmet, a bistro with a very simple menu.  I had a brief vision of a sweet corn omlette, herb-stuffed roasted pheasant or quail leg, a nicely seasoned parsnip purée, and a small, three-person kitchen.

Mike and I did some shopping after lunch, including a stop at the local BevMo, where I ran into a co-worker.  After spending half an hour browsing the inventory, I left with a sixer of Alaskan ESB (made by my favorite American brewery, the Alaskan Brewing Company).  I’m a bit worried about being able to find Alaskan beer once I move back to the Midwest, so I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can while I still have time.

I also picked up a sixer of Sam Adams’ Cherry Wheat, which I’m taking a while to get used to.   I’m not a huge wheat beer drinker, though I absolutely love Pyramid’s Apricot Weizen Ale.  The jury is out on this cherry wheat.  Initially I found it to be a bit too sweet, and it’s making me tired the way wheat beer typically does.  But I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Sam Adams, as Sam’s Boston Lager is the first beer I can remember drinking.   I don’t really care for Sam Adams products (with the exception of the Winter Ale), but it’s a sentimental choice.

I also picked up the first season of Hill Street Blues on DVD.  HSB has been one of my favorite shows for a few years now (I started watching it about the same time I started watching Nigella Lawson’s show), but I didn’t know it was already released.  Catching it out of the corner of my eye was very pleasant surprise for me, indeed.

Lastly, one of the bloggers I’ve enjoyed most is back after an extended absence.  Last year I wrote some pieces about baseball on a now-defunct website called Twins Territory.  John Bonnes, the dean of Minnesota Twins blogging, set up a community blog.  Apart from John, who was the owner/operator/head geek, there were a number of very regular contributors to Twins Territory, including David Wintheiser, who wrote under the heading “Contrarian Bias.”  David and John’s writing heavily influenced my decision to start blogging on the site, and I was very pleased when I found out this morning David had a new blog.

I’m now listening to some Julie London, sipping the last of a bottle of Cherry Wheat, and getting ready to dig into my Hemmings Sport & Exotic Car that came in the mail on Friday.  Hope you have a great rest of the weekend.