I decided halfway through the pilot that I was going to talk about each episode. Because the pilot is incredible. It's also not a surprise the show got bad ratings from the public. The show immediately drops you in on the precinct, bombarding you with a million characters that are mostly distinguishable by one trait at first.
In the pilot, not a whole lot happens on a plot level except to get the viewers used to the setting. Captain Frank Furillo needs to negotiate a hostage situation, a detective hits on a public defender, and two officers help calm down a domestic situation. There's also a shocking shooting of two main characters at the end, but the majority of the pilot is simply to drop the viewers into a completely new world.
Furillo, the unquestioned star of the show so far, gets most of the development and screen time. He's got an ex-wife who hounds him for alimony money, a probably underfunded department with high gang activity, and relationship problems with his girlfriend. Furillo is the traditional archetypal lead: he's sensible, rational, and good at his job.
As played by Daniel J. Travanti, Furillo easily gets the audience's good graces with his weary, yet highly effective attitude. We're told Furillo is the only person in the department respected by everyone, even the gangs, and it's not hard to see why. He simultaneously deals with an ex-wife and a hostage situation, made further complicated by the apparent incompetency of Lt Howard Hunter. (There's much more evidence he's good at his job in the second episode. In fact, the pilot on Hulu is actually the first two episodes of the series. I'd recommend having two available hours and watching that. I just had too much to write so I split the episodes up.)
Easily the best part of the pilot is how quickly and effectively it establishes its setting. It's constantly in action, with a ton of extras, and nearly filled to the brim with people. There are a lot of scenes of just the criminals and the officers who are too busy to control all of them at once. While some of it is a bit disorientating, it's better that way than to handhold the audience.
Easily the worst part of this episode is that most of the characters take a back seat to Furillo and are purely defined by one or two traits. The aforementioned Esterhaus is mostly established as having a teenage girlfriend, which is a sign of the times I suspect, but still creepy. Michael Conrad comes off as a lovable grandpa, which makes the fact that he's dating a teenager all the more wrong.
Detective Mick Belker is defined by one thing: insanity or perceived insanity. Bruce Weitz plays him way over the top, but it kind of works anyway. He's for some reason extremely tempted to bite a felon and actually does in another case. On the other hand, he does spot a pickpocketer so he seems good at his job. It's amazing how much characters can get away with the audience if they are good at their job. He's poorly defined so far, but you could do worse than insane and competent.
Hunter gets defined by one trait: overaggressive. He's a comic relief at this point in the run, but he's problematic to me because he seems ridiculously incompetent. So with a room full of hostages, he just wants to go guns a blazing? What? I'm not too worried yet, because hello one episode, but Hunter does not seem like an actual human being the way he acts. So far he seems clinically insane, which would be a problem.
There's Detective JD Larue, whose one trait is horny. He tries to hit on the public defender, Joyce Davenport, to hilarious results. He seems pretty confident in himself and I can't tell if he's a successful womanizer or not, because he comes on way too strongly to Davenport. Detective Neal Washington, his partner, seems to play the role of funny black sidekick, which admittedly he does well.
Speaking of Davenport, she's probably the only other character well-formed from the beginning. She quickly establishes herself as awesome when she rejects Larue by pouring coffee on him. She also seems to be a persistent thorn in the side of the department because she's good at her job. She's basically an independent woman, which I suspect was something rarely seen in 1981 pop culture.
There are so many characters, some of them largely just fill up space. Officer Lucile Bates, the only female officer or detective, gets nothing to do yet. Lt. Ray Calletano gets plenty of screentime, but he's nothing but an annoying stereotype.
Despite both of them getting shot, neither Michael Warren or Charles Haid makes much of an impression until they get shot. (They make a stronger impression in episode two) I liked how both of them defused the situation when the mad black wife threatened to kill her husband for cheating on her. I didn't so much like that the conclusion was that the wife needed to try harder to get her husband's affections. There's 1980s gender politics for you.
Lastly, Sgt. Henry Goldblume, played by Joe Spano, has a decent amount of lines and screentime in the first episode, but he doesn't really make an impression until episode two. He spends most of the first episode trying to deal with a hostage situation, to little effect although he's certainly not helped at all by Howard Hunter interfering. So he ends up looking good in comparison.
I can't possibly go back in time to catch the trends and the regular portrayal of groups, but Hill Street Blues most likely was ahead of its time. The cast is ethnically diverse with two black main cast members and one Hispanic one. Plus, the guest characters and extras are full of ethnic diversity to help realistically portray the setting, which it does. It seems very much in its time with its gender politics unfortunately, but I can't expect this show to age perfectly.
The acting is something I've learned to deal with in older shows. It's not bad, but I'd call it "good over-the-top acting." A good example is Weitz. Weitz is good, but through two episodes, it is absolutely shocking he was nominated six times. It's just a preference of style I guess, but I like toned-down performances rather than "in-your-face" acting. (While the main cast is good at acting, I the performances of the guest stars have me already worried the acting will be distracting.)
Unfortunately, I don't have a good context for shows in 1981. I can search them, but I can already tell you I've seen hardly any television shows from that period. So without that, all of have to go on is how it looks in 2014 and how I imagine it was in 1981. And I got to say, this show has aged really well and still would be a good show in 2014. I did not expect to immediately get drawn to it.
Grade - A
Playlist
1. "Fever" - The Black Keys
2. "Middle of Nowhere" - Hot Hot Heat
3. "Get Over It" - OK Go
4. "Cold Hard Bitch" - Jet
5. "Gasoline" - Alpine
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