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Tavis: It is a pleasure to welcome Steven Bochco to this program. The 10-time Emmy winner has created some of the most memorable shows and characters in the history of television, shows like "L.A. Law," "Hill Street Blues," "Doogie Howser, M.D." and, of course, "NYPD Blue." His latest series is called "Blind Justice," and it premieres March 8 on ABC. We'll talk about that later. But now, the talk all this week is about the final episode of "NYPD Blue." And here now a scene from the finale tomorrow night of "NYPD Blue."

Andy Sipowicz: You saying Heilbrenner got them?

John Clark: I don't know. What I do know is that this Angelari guy was working those guys when we were in the room here with Heilbrenner and his lawyer.

Sipowicz: They gave him Takarta's name?

Clark: Andy, I wouldn't go too hard on him. You know, he's a new guy. He's a retired chief.

Sipowicz: Keep it open.

Clark: Yeah?

Sipowicz: It's your case. You want to continue with the investigation, continue with the investigation.

Clark: It might piss off a few people.

Sipowicz: Let me worry about that.

Tavis: I'm supposed to applaud you for 12 seasons? That's all you could do was 12 seasons in prime time?

Steven Bochco: Yeah, what a bum.

Tavis: Congratulations.

Bochco: Thank you.

Tavis: Nice to see you again.

Bochco: Thanks, Tavis.

Tavis: 12 seasons. So what can you tell me about what we're going to see tomorrow night beyond what we just saw?

Bochco: Well, I'll tell you what you won't see.

Tavis: OK.

Bochco: You're not going to see any huge, explosive ending, you know. We're not killing people. We're not blowing up the building. You know, we were fortunate to have this entire season to plan our finale.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Bochco: And what I always wanted to try to do was to have an ending that befitted a show that's been a staple on the schedule for 12 years, you know, and not just sort of kill folks. I wanted to have a feeling that the life of this precinct is going to continue. You just won't get to visit it every week. But I think that loyal viewers of the show will be very satisfied with the ending that we've got. It's quiet. It's a good episode. The emotional life of the episode, I think, is very touching. And I think there's just a - I think at the end of it, people are going to feel that that was a fitting end to this 12-year run.

Tavis: We'll talk about "Blind Justice" in a moment. You're one of the fortunate ones, because you get to replace yourself.

Bochco: Oh, boy. Yeah.

Tavis: That's unheard of. So, your new series, "Blind Justice," will replace "NYPD Blue" in the ABC lineup. Let me ask you, though, that said, whether or not you were at all disappointed at ABC's decision to end the run of "NYPD Blue."

Bochco: No, I really wasn't. 12 years is a long time, and I've said before, I'd rather leave the party an hour early than an hour late.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Bochco: And to be able to say that in the 12th season of this show we've been creatively strong and vital and enthusiastic is a real testament to, you know, the creative energy and focus of a large number of folks. So, I feel great about it.

Tavis: 12 years, to your point, is a long time to do anything, much less on television. One of the things I so respect about you is that you've had a number of series, as I mentioned earlier, that have run for a multiple number of years, so you really do good work. That said, I would think that if there were a -- if there were a show, a setting, to be more exact, that would allow one to do a good series for 12 years, it might be a police precinct in New York City. Is the setting of this, the nature and the notion of what this show is about, part of what allowed it to run for 12 seasons? I mean, there might be some other topic, which I can't think of off the top of my head, that you couldn't get 12 good years out of.

Bochco: Well, you know, there's a reason in prime-time television why cops and doctors and lawyers tend to predominate creatively, and that is because those environments really generate tremendous storytelling opportunities. And there are so many different -- you know, it's like a kaleidoscope, you know. You just turn it a little bit, and you get a different angle on something.

Tavis: That's why there are 15,000 "Law & Orders?"

Bochco: That's right. That's exactly right.

Tavis: OK. I just figured this out. OK.

Bochco: That's exactly right.

Tavis: Yeah.

Bochco: You know, any cop show on the air, you're going to see stories from week to week to week that are not that dissimilar to stories told on other shows.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Bochco: But because of the characters you have and because of the particular thematic point of view you may be exploring, they emerge as completely different. So, those kinds of shows really yield tremendous material.

Tavis: 12 years ago, when "NYPD Blue" started, I don't need to remind you, there was a great deal of controversy. This show was, you know, for lack of a better phrase, the first R-rated television program. You know the story better than I do. Again, there were a litany - I forget the number - but 50-plus, maybe, of ABC affiliates that balked at even running the pilot episode.

Bochco: Yeah. It was almost I think 17% of the affiliates refused to air the show.

Tavis: Take me back 12 years ago and tell me what you remember about how difficult it was to get this thing off the ground, now that you're celebrating 12 years of it actually surviving.

Bochco: It was a very overheated situation. The summer before we went on the air, Donald Wildman had mounted a tremendous campaign against the show. He and his organization had taken out full-page ads in all the major newspapers across America denouncing "NYPD Blue" as being obscene, and of course the great irony of it, nobody'd ever seen the show. He certainly hadn't. No one had because it wasn't out there yet. And the things that they said about the show were patently false. That said, the attention, while not pleasant, because we were getting, you know, 1,000, 1,500 pieces of mail a week, you know, because in all those ads, he had coupons, you cut the coupon out and send them 10 bucks or 20 bucks or whatever it was. It was intense, and the advertising community, obviously, was very, very skittish. And, you know, networks aren't in the business of controversy. They're in the business of selling time, and controversy doesn't really sell time. So it was kind of an intense time.

Tavis: How did you navigate that?

Bochco: Well, we had the good fortune of, A, having a really, really good show. I mean, it really -- you know, the language and the nudity such as it was were bells and whistles. What we had at the core was a really solid, compelling drama with great characters, and to ABC's credit, ABC then being owned by Cap Cities, they really believed in the show, and they held firm, you know, Dan Burke, Bob Eiger, Tom Murphy, they really held firm in the face of this tremendous amount of pressure. That said, had the show not come out of the blocks as an instant hit, I think we would have been gone in weeks.

Tavis: Tell me how you respond to one who suggested that given so much of the trash that certain people view, that television gives us today, we could in part blame Steven Bochco for pushing the envelope. It's because you pushed the envelope on language, on nudity, on storylines, it's because you and your crew at "NYPD Blue" pushed the envelope 12 years ago, we can thank you now or curse you, depending on one's position, seeing Janet Jackson's breast at halftime at the Super Bowl. That you're to blame.

Bochco: I missed Janet Jackson's breast.

Tavis: Your wife is not bothered by that?

Bochco: No. I didn't even see it.

Tavis: Can we blame you for pushing the envelope in television 12 years ago?

Bochco: Well, you know, if you want to, I suppose. Be my guest.

Tavis: Would that bother you if

I blamed you for that?

Bochco: No. No. We very consciously set out to do something that we hoped would reinvigorate what at the time was a kind of a moribund genre, you know, the one-hour drama. And I think we did, and I think in the wake of that, we opened the gates for a great many wonderful, wonderful hour dramas. You know, the 1990s and into the early, you know, 2000s have seen remarkable hour dramas on broadcast television. And if some part of that is because of what we were able to accomplish, you know, I'll take the credit and/or the blame for that.

Tavis: Give me your assessment of the kinds of fights that you did have to have with the suits over these 12 years and whether the fights ever dissipated or became -- you had to become more aggressive as the time went on.

Bochco: Yeah. Well, this show originally was supposed to go on the air in 1992. And it didn't because of exactly those kinds of fights over broadcast standards - language and nudity, and I didn't want to do a watered-down version of the show. My position was I made "Hill Street," which was arguably the best cop show to date that had ever been made.

Tavis: And the best theme song of any cop show ever in history.

Bochco: I think so. Mike Post, ladies and gentlemen.

Tavis: Mike Post. I love it. Yeah.

Bochco: And my position was I'd rather not make the show than make a pale version of this show. And so, we argued over it for an additional year's time, and we finally in the course of that next year hammered out an agreement about nudity and language that we were all able to sign off on. And ironically, once we signed off on it, I had fewer problems with "NYPD Blue" than I'd ever had with any other show, because there was nothing to argue about. Everything was kind of laid out. We can do this, we can't do that. But before we came to those agreements, I remember sitting in Bob Eiger's office, and the two of us had a pad and a pencil. Grown men, we're talking about here. And we were drawing pictures of naked women, you know, and what can we see from the side and can we see a nipple? No. OK, well -- I mean, we were just -- I mean, it was really absurd. But that's what we had to do.

Tavis: Could "NYPD Blue" get on the air today if you were just starting it?

Bochco: I doubt it.

Tavis: You don't think so?

Bochco: No, I don't. I'm sure that Bob and Steve McPherson at ABC would dispute that, because I think they need to, but as a practical matter, I really don't think so. When I look, for instance, at a show like "Blind Justice," which is also a New York City-based cop show, 10:00 Tuesday night, hoping to inherit the same audience that's been loyal to "NYPD Blue" all these years and hopefully gain greater audience as well, and I'm at war every single day with their broadcast standards department over things that I haven't even had to think about for the last 12 years. You know, it's kind of frustrating.

Tavis: That is brought on by what? By the environment? By the times?

Bochco: Yeah.

Tavis: By who?

Bochco: Well, I think -- I think we're in a very conservative time right now, and the environment is hostile towards adult fare on broadcast television. On the flip side of it, however, fortunately, you know, television now is a vast and varied medium. And in that world of hundreds of channels and pay services and cable, there's all kinds of opportunities to do work that you can't do on broadcast television, and so for the discerning viewer, you know, they can find a level of comfort in the kind of programming they watch that might not have been available once upon a time.

Tavis: You used the phrase a moment ago "adult fare," and then you went to talk about the myriad number of channels that exist nowadays. And something just hit me. With all the talent you have, why keep screwing around with the networks and arguing and fighting and your hair turning whiter. Why screw around with that? Just go over there to the cable outlets. Go to Showtime. Go to HBO. Why screw around with ABC? I mean, I got nothing against ABC, but I'm looking out for your heart. I want you to live a long life here.

Bochco: Thank you. Well, I'm intending to. I don't think it's mutually exclusive. I am doing things for cable now. We have a project with FX which I think is going to be very provocative and interesting, and certainly we'll be able to access a degree of creative freedom, if you will, that, you know, you can't necessarily get on broadcast television. But on the other hand, the shows that we do on broadcast television give us a tremendous opportunity to reach a really vast audience, you know. There's nothing quite like that.

Tavis: Sure.

Bochco: And with a show, for instance, like "Blind Justice" or even "L.A. Law," those kinds of issues, you know, of language and nudity, for me aren't as compelling as they were on "NYPD Blue," where we had a very specific thing we were trying to accomplish.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Bochco: While I would always love to be able to access more freedom, you know, in terms of language particularly on a 10:00 cop show, you know, I'm happy to fight those battles on a day-to-day basis, because a show like "Blind Justice," I don't think particularly suffers for the lack of it, whereas I think we've all seen in the last year and a half or so the degree to which we've scaled back some of our things on "NYPD Blue," probably have softened the show.

Tavis: Speaking of "Blind Justice," let me toss to a clip here about -- that explains a little bit about what this new show is. I want to talk about that for a second, and then take you a little farther back, even beyond "NYPD Blue" while I got you here, to ask some questions about this wonderful career, if that's OK with you.

Bochco: Sure.

Tavis: First, "Blind Justice."

Jim Dunbar: Hey, Jim Dunbar, here for Lieutenant Fisk.

Marty Russo: He's on the phone.

Dunbar: I'm assigned here.

Tom Selway: We know.

Dunbar: Anyone allergic to dogs?

Selway: Not me. Hey. Tom Selway.

Dunbar: Jim Dunbar. Nice to meet you.

Selway: Thanks.

Russo: Marty Russo over here.

Karen Bettencourt.

Dunbar: How you doing?

Russo: Good. Yeah. We heard your name a lot. Read about you and all. Real balls of steel at the bank robbery.

Selway: Not to bring up the past.

Dunbar: That's all right. You

guys got a free desk here?

Bettencourt: On the left.

Dunbar: My left?

Bettencourt: Straight ahead on your left.

Tavis: I think I'm getting the picture, but tell me what "Blind Justice" is all about.

Bochco: "Blind Justice" is about a guy, Detective Jim Dunbar, who, at the height of his career and in the prime of his life, loses his vision by gunshot, you know, during a bank hold-up, and in which he acquits himself heroically and saves lives of a great number of cops. And in the ensuing year, rather than gracefully accepting retirement and the label of, you know, disabled, fights to get his job back. And he does so by threatening a lawsuit and winds up coming back on the job and finding himself in a very interesting and hostile environment, because on the one hand, he was a hero and cops have to acknowledge that. But on the other hand, he comes into this environment now with a significant disability and none of these cops want to work with him because they see him as a liability.

Tavis: Sounds interesting.

Bochco: It is interesting. Thank you.

Tavis: In this particular clip, we saw the brother, the African-American, as the first one to step up to welcome this guy.

Bochco: Right. Reno Wilson.

Tavis: Exactly. Step up and welcome the detective to the precinct. And that's like typical Steven Bochco for me. One of the things, if I might say so myself, that I've always admired about your work, unlike a whole lot of other folk who bother me terribly who produce stuff in prime time, who seem not to get it where ethnicity and culture is concerned, most all of your projects, you've never have shied away from not just tackling race issues but, indeed, having a number of African-Americans, other persons of color -- and I can run a list of them - who you featured in from "L.A. Law" to "NYPD Blue" to "Hill Street Blues," you put them out there. Where, why, how do you seem to get it around these issues in prime time, where some of the other folk, who I deliberately cast aspersions on, do not seem to get it?

Bochco: I don't know. You know, to me --

Tavis: It ain't rocket science.

Bochco: No. Exactly. It's a non-issue, I mean, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I grew up in New York City. You know, I grew up in -- to put it mildly, an ethnically diverse neighborhood. I went to school. I played sports. I sang on street corners where, you know, I mean, all my life I've just been around all kinds of folks of varied ethnicity and count among my good friends all sorts of folks, and if you're doing a show set in New York City about cops, it's just not even a question. I don't even know why anyone would think twice about it.

Tavis: Yeah. I was disappointed, perhaps not as much as you, since you were producing it and I wasn't. "City of Angels" was a show that was set in a hospital that really featured a terrific cast, African-Americans and others. It was a black drama. So often, black folk in particular complain about the fact that all we get from television are sitcoms. Nothing wrong with sitcoms. I love to laugh as much as the next guy, but there's a lack of balance in this business where people of color and their images are concerned. So I was disappointed when "City of Angels" didn't make it. How disappointed were you, number one? And why didn't that show work? Was it not your best work? Why didn't it work?

Bochco: Well, I was disappointed too. I won't say whether it was or wasn't my best work. It was good work. More to the point, it was good work that was getting better. I've always said that there's some irony in the fact that the "City of Angels" that got canceled was a significantly better show than the "City of Angels" that got renewed after the first season. But television isn't medicine. You can't make people watch it because it's good for them. They either like it, they respond to it or they don't, and it's a commercial medium. And, you know, we didn't get to a level of critical mass in terms of sheer audience volume to warrant coming back. Is that fair? No. Is life fair? No. Had I been running a network that bought "City of Angels," I would have made a very unique commitment to that show. I would have said your only mandate with this show is to be good and the hell with the rest of it. The hell with the ratings. The hell with anything because, you know, realistically, you can't ask that show to perform to the same standard that normal programming does, at least initially, because like it or not, there is resistance, there is resistance to turning on your television set and watching a black-themed drama, and I think the only way you overcome it is by letting an audience know it's going to be part of this television landscape for a good long time.

Tavis: Well, your mouth to God's ears, and maybe somebody will get that. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we'll see a drama with people of color. In the meantime, we'll be watching the final episode of "NYPD Blue" tomorrow night. Last episode. And then, of course, "Blind Justice" later on taking its place on March 8. Pleasure to have you on the program.

Bochco: Thanks, Tavis;

Tavis: All the best to you, Steven. That's our show for tonight. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A. Bye, Andy Sipowicz. Thanks for watching. Keep the faith.