Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993                   TAG: 9308260245
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOCHCO ROCKS THE BOAT AGAIN WITH CONTROVERSIAL `NYPD BLUE'

The program includes extremely rough language, very blunt gestures and even partial nudity, breaking barriers that pay-cable channels like HBO shattered years ago but which have remained intact for the broadcast networks.

Until now. ABC showed the pilot for ``NYPD Blue'' recently to its affiliates at their annual meeting, and while most appear to be enthusiastic about the quality of the show, many are very nervous about the words they heard and the skin they saw.

``Any time you rock the boat a little bit, some people are going to get seasick,'' philosophizes Bochco, sounding unfazed about the uproar. It's expected to build through the summer as right-wing pressure groups mount organized protests against the show and against ABC for scheduling it.

Already Bochco and the program are being attacked in full-page newspaper ads by Methodist minister Donald Wildmon, a campaigner for cleaner TV.

``I think he attacks me whenever he's running out of funds,'' Bochco says. ``He saddles me up and whips me like a cash cow.'' Bochco says Wildmon hasn't seen the program he is attacking.

While Bochco insists ``NYPD'' is ``not, per se, `shocking' material,'' he does concede that many affiliates saw red when they saw ``Blue'' and says he spent more than three hours discussing their objections with them. Does Bochco honestly think that the pilot film the affiliates saw, with its four-letter words and explicit (for television) bedroom scene, will make it intact to ABC in September, when it is scheduled to air?

``I have every hope that this is the show that will air,'' Bochco says. But then he adds: ``Am I listening to people's concerns? Yes. Have I slammed the door on making some modification? No.'' ejecting the term ``negotiations'' to describe additional meetings still to be held with network censors and executives, Bochco indicates there are definite limits as to how much he will sacrifice in the name of compromise.

``If I began to address all the anxieties expressed to me about this thing,'' he says, ``it would be in tatters.''

Bochco thinks ``NYPD Blue'' could be another in the small number of shows throughout TV history that have changed the medium ``incrementally'' and helped it grow up - shows like Norman Lear's ``All in the Family'' and Bochco's own ``Hill Street Blues.''

``Shows like these change the rules of the game a little bit,'' Bochco says, ``and when you do that, you are bound to generate a lot of resistance.''

Bochco's program is serious, adult, intelligent and compelling. Once you get past the shocks, there is a solid and well-built cop show there (if not one as boldly innovative as ``Homicide: Life on The Street,'' which NBC shelved after a few airings earlier this year).

But what happens, Bochco is asked, when other producers demand from ABC the same freedom and latitude Bochco is getting with his series?

``I hate to get lumbered with that problem,'' Bochco sighs. ``From a practical, network point of view, if I were the network, I would have no problem saying to my other producers, `We will take these things on a case-by-case basis.'''

``NYPD Blue'' arrives at a moment when public and congressional uproar about violence and sex on TV is at a new high. ``People have told me my timing is all wrong,'' notes Bochco, ``but when is the timing ever right for doing something that's never been done before?'' The violence in Bochco's show, while graphic, is done with artful restraint and, as Bochco says, he and coproducer David Milch are careful to show the toll that the violence takes.

This is not the first time Bochco has found himself, or placed himself, at the center of controversy. He sounds as though he is taking this latest furor in stride.

``I don't think I'm all that dangerous,'' he says. ``The last time I looked, this was still America and I had a right to ply my trade, and other people have a right to scream and yell about it. If the final analysis, it's the audience who decides whether to get behind this or not. I believe in this work, and I am happy to let this work speak for itself.''

\ Tom Shales writes about television for The Washington Post.|