End of the "Blue" Period

Many purveyors of TV's more risqué moments may profess they did it all to maintain the "artistic integrity" of their projects.

Not Steven Bochco. The Emmy-winning cocreator of NYPD Blue, the gritty cop drama that unfurls its series finale Tuesday night at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, admits all the cussin', butt-barin' controversy his show sparked during its 12-season run was, in most cases, completely gratuitous.

"When I created NYPD Blue [with David Milch, who has gone on to create HBO's Emmy-winning Deadwood], it was the only time in my career that I consciously tried to be manipulative with the form," Bochco tells the Hollywood Reporter. "More than just making a police procedural, what I really wanted to do was a drama that pushed at the bindings of what the medium had been allowed to do up until that point."

Which meant focusing on the, ahem, bluer aspects of the show. When NYPD Blue premiered in September 1993, it became an instant hit and nabbed 27 Emmy nominations in its first season, but it was also a lightning rod for controversy, thanks to salty language, bare butts, boobs and some of the very un-PC viewpoints of Dennis Franz's crabby, but ultimately endearing, Detective Andy Sipowicz.

Among the show's more clamor-causing moments:

Franz, who would win four Best Actor Emmys and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the often racist, homophobic, distrustful Sipowicz, quickly established himself as the enduring heart of the show, and it started with the pilot's stark scene in which a particularly angry, recovering alcoholic Sipowicz hits a bar in the middle of the day to down shot after shot of whiskey.

Sipowicz's testy interactions with his former boss, African-American Lieutenant Arthur Fancy (James McDaniel), after he had used the N-word, and 15th Precinct clerk John Irvin (Bill Brochtrup), whose homosexuality caused more than a little friction with Sipowicz.

Jimmy Smits, who received five Emmy nominations for his role as Sipowicz's beloved partner, Bobby Simone, left the show during the show's sixth season in 1998. His heartbreaking death was just one of many devastating blows to Sipowicz, who, in addition to alcoholism, battled cancer, the death of another partner (Rick Schroder's Danny Sorenson), the murder of his oldest son and near death of his younger son, and the murder of his second wife.

The many cast changes: When the show lost Smits (now on NBC's The West Wing), former child star Schroder came in as the troubled Detective Sorensen, who was murdered by the end of season eight. Another former child star, Saved By the Bell's Mark-Paul Gosselaar, joined the show as Detective John Clark in season nine. Among the other famous former castmembers: Sherry Stringfield, who played Caruso's wife in season one before taking up residency in NBC's ER; Amy Brenneman, who went on to score several Emmy noms for her titular role in the CBS drama Judging Amy; Emmy-nominated Gail O'Grady, who now stars as the mom on NBC's family drama American Dreams; Emmy winner Kim Delaney, who recently finished a stint on Fox's The O.C.; Emmy nominee Nicholas Turturro, who costars in the upcoming Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard; Sharon Lawrence, an NYPD Blue Emmy nominee who left the show to star in the ill-fated CBS sitcom Ladies Man; and Andrea Thompson, who decamped to pursue a brief career as a news anchor before returning to TV on Fox's 24 last season.

Speaking of ill-fated exits, Caruso, who garnered accolades, an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe Award as Detective Kelly during the show's first season, made what remains one of the more infamous TV exits of all-time. Caruso fancied himself a big-screen star and forced his way out of NYPD Blue. And the big-screen career he was banking on? It flopped, and the only subsequent award he earned was a 1997 Razzie for Worst New Star. A chastened Caruso has since returned to the tube as the lead in CBS' hit CSI: Miami.

Throughout most of the onscreen and behind-the-scenes drama, NYPD Blue remained a top tube hit, finishing in the Nielsen top 20 for several seasons, and winning 20 Emmys off of 82 Emmy nominations, including Best Drama Series in 1995.

But, thanks largely to edgier fare like HBO's The Sopranos and The Wire, which aren't constrained by any network limitations, NYPD Blue has lost its buzz as a watercooler show and its place among the Nielsen elite. Blue regularly finishes third in its time slot--behind Law & Order: SVU and Blue alumna Brenneman's Judging Amy--and has averaged fewer than 10 million viewers an episode for its final season, about half the number of viewers it pulled in at its peak.

In fact, Bochco says one of the reasons he decided to end the show this season was to ensure that it would have a series finale, since it was in danger of cancellation by the network. "It's better to go out too early rather than overstay our welcome," he said in February 2004, when ABC announced Blue would end.

And about that finale, Bochco and Franz have revealed little about the specific ending, but both have confirmed that it essentially wraps up the storyline in a way that means life will go on as usual in Precinct 15, despite all the personal and personnel upheavals and the fact that the suit-hating Sipowicz has now become a boss-type after having passed the sergeant's exam.

As for the future of the castmembers, Chicago native Franz says he's mulling over movie offers; Gordon Clapp, who plays Detective Greg Medavoy, plans to join Alan Alda and Jeffrey Tambor in May in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross; and Gosselaar has landed the lead in a Fox drama pilot about a brother and sister who run a Las Vegas wedding chapel.

And TV whiz Bochco intends to duke it out with network standards and practices over another cop drama, his new ABC series Blind Justice (Mar. 8, 10 p.m.), starring Ron Eldard as a detective who loses his sight.

"Same time slot, same genre, same attention to grittiness and detail, and yet the battles I'm fighting with broadcast standards are totally retro," Bochco told the Associated Press.

Not that he seems to have any regrets about his efforts with NYPD Blue, which gets a respectful pre-finale send-off with Tuesday night's ABC special NYPD Blue: A Final Tribute (9 p.m.), hosted by former star Smits.

"Thank God we were given the creative freedom to make a show that could compete on a playing field that is simply not level," says Bochco, who also created the seminal '80s dramas L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues. "On that score, we more than achieved what we had set out to do."