(With links to the original reviews or summaries where available.)

• "Pilot" (9/21/93): After all the hype and boycotts over the nudity and language, the series premiere had to deliver substance as well as style. Boy, did it ever: comedy (Andy's profane kiss-off to future wife Sylvia), tragedy (Andy is shot and nearly killed by a mobster), sex (John Kelly gets lucky with both his ex-wife and Officer Janice Licalsi) and suspense (we find out that Janice is working for the mob herself and has been ordered to murder Kelly). A note-perfect opener.

• "Emission Accomplished" (10/19/93): When James Martinez suspects that an elderly cop committed a murder, Kelly tries to keep his protege from winding up in Internal Affairs for the rest of his career - a fate he failed to prevent for his first partner, now a department outcast. The closing scene, with Kelly's ex-buddy bagpiping an Irish lullaby in a graveyard at sunset, is a real beauty.

• "NYPD Lou" (11/2/93): See main story. Also features the first appearance of Andy Jr., then estranged for years from his dad.

• "Guns 'N Rosaries" (5/10/94): Martinez kills a black man who was about to shoot partner Greg Medavoy, but the victim's gun disappears and a racial firestorm ensues. To make matters worse, Janice's talk with John's priest convinces her to confess to the murder of Angelo Marino and his driver. The last two scenes - the first with Kelly putting a gun in a reporter's face, the second with Kelly trying to save Janice from a humiliating perpwalk - show just why everyone but the people who worked with Caruso were sorry to see him leave.

• "Heavin' Can Wait" (11/14/95): Sylvia's morning sickness, an awful child murder and Diane's decision to call Bobby instead of AA sponsor Andy when she thought she might drink combine to set the two partners against each other for the first time. Perfect as Franz and Smits were as allies, they were even better on those infrequent occasions when the partnership was on the rocks.

• "The Backboard Jungle" (1/16/96): While investigating a drive-by shooting at a charity basketball game, Andy antagonizes a black community leader, jeopardizing the case and his working relationship with Lt. Fancy. Sipowicz's use of the N-word, followed by a scene where he suggests the shooters "decided to act their color," served as a cold, hard slap in the face to viewers who wanted to see him as a lovable bigot.

• "A Death in the Family" (5/7/96) & "Closing Time" (5/14/96): Long before it became a cliche for the writers to kill off one of Sipowicz's loved ones, the arc dealing with the murder of Andy Jr. was one of the series' most powerful, especially the portrait of Andy falling off the wagon and getting the snot beaten out of him while drunkenly trying to give his dead son one final lesson in policework.

• "It Takes a Village" (11/4/97): The two leads each confront their darkest impulses: a sex offender touches a nerve when he suggests Sipowicz might get off on beating up suspects, while Bobby is consumed with self-loathing when he cons a grandmother into telling her murdering grandsons to confess without a lawyer present.

• "Hearts and Souls" (11/24/98): Yes, it seems like Simone was in that hospital bed forever, but his swan song was a work of art, switching back and forth between the physical and metaphysical worlds as Bobby and his friends each make their peace with his impending death.

• "Raging Bulls" (12/15/98): A fight six years in the making, as Sipowicz and Lt. Fancy finally come to blows over a racially-motivated police shooting, with a confused Danny Sorensen the only thing keeping them from making it a 12-rounder. A great showcase for Franz, James McDaniel and Rick Schroder, back before his character became a total freaking loon.

• "Oh, Mama" (9/21/04): Sipowicz and John Clark's investigation into a high school murder leads them to the home of a teenage boy whose obese, delusional, stark naked mother is molesting him. The case gets closed, but Clark is faced with a no-win scenario: leave the fragile boy with his mom or place him in a juvenile facility filled with violent delinquents. He does the latter, then turns to Andy and asks, "What did we just do?" Easily the dark highlight of the Mark-Paul Gosselaar years.

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