The NYPD Blue Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List, Short Version

By Alan Sepinwall
Last modified February 21, 2006

There are a lot of frequently asked questions about "NYPD Blue," but if you're in a hurry, these are the ones that get asked the most. To learn lots more about the show, try the full version of the FAQ, which can be found at http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/faq.html

Now that the show's over, what happens to the website?

Absolutely nothing, both positively and negatively. The site is not going anywhere, but odds are that it won't be updated again, with one exception: if there is ever any news about future DVD sets, I'll post it here.

Beyond that, there really won't be anything else to do. (I suppose if the rerun schedule on TNT and Court TV changes, I could probably be motivated to change that in the FAQ), but beyond that, that's all, folks. I've devoted 11 years to this website, and I'm a bit tired. The show is over, and while a few sections of this website are still uncomplete -- the season one reviews, biographies of a few of the later actors and characters -- I feel comfortable leaving things be.

What about the actors' next projects?

At the moment I'm writing this, a couple of them have things lined up (Gordon Clapp is doing a "Glengarry Glen Ross" revival on Broadway, Mark-Paul Gosselaar is doing a pilot for Fox), but I don't have time to keep track of everyone's extracurricular projects now. If you want to know what someone's up to, go to IMDb.

So can I still e-mail you?

Sure. If you have a question that isn't here or in the long version of the FAQ, or if you just want to send along a comment, feel free. If I know the answer and/or have the time and energy, I'll write back.

Will you or Amanda be reviewing other shows?

Sorry, but no. Our lives are both much busier than they were when we each began this job, and the last few years, we've been barely able to squeeze in some reviewing time out of loyalty and a desire to finish what we started. In an ideal world, Amanda would move on to reviewing "Deadwood" and I'd be writing up "The Wire" (or vice versa), but jobs and families have to take precedence now.

(NOTE: Amanda has since e-mailed me to say that she could be talked into reviewing another show -- again, "Deadwood" is her fave -- but it'd have to be a paying gig at this point in her life.)

Why did you and Amanda do this in the first place?

Long story short: we really loved the show and wanted to write about it. Long story longer: I wrote about the origin of the website and these reviews in my review of the final season premiere. Amanda wrote something similar in her review of the series finale.

Help!!!! I missed the finale! How can I get a tape? Will ABC rerun it?

Try asking on the alt.tv.nypd-blue newsgroup. If you can't access Usenet directly, you can go to it via Google.

I've made it a policy for years not to respond to request for tapes, as has Amanda, so please don't e-mail us about this.

As of now, there are no plans for any Blue episodes to ever air again on ABC, though there's a slim chance some could turn up on the summer schedule. So you may have to wait till fall to catch it on TNT or Court TV.

Will there be more DVD sets?

Well, the third season finally came out on Feb. 21, 2006, more than two years after season two hit stores, and a fourth one is in the works, and could come out as early as May or June. Season three was done on a lower budget (dual-sided discs, fewer commentaries), but if that's the compromise required to keep the series going on DVD -- and this one needs to sell better than the others for that to happen -- than we have to go with that.

Isn't Gordon Clapp an original castmember?

Technically, no. In every other way, yes. Medavoy didn't appear until the third episode, which makes Dennis Franz the only original castmember to make it all the way through from the pilot to the finale. But 12 years later, I'm thinking those first two episodes shouldn't be held against Gordon. So I'm changing my answer to yes.

Where can I find cable reruns of the show?

The cable channels Court TV and TNT will be sharing the "NYPD" rerun rights for the forseeable future.

Both channels recently shuffled their schedules, so here are the new timeslots for the repeats: Court TV airs the show from Monday through Thursday at 6 p.m. and airs back to back episodes at noon on Saturdays and Sundays. TNT, meanwhile, airs the show at 2 p.m. on all weekdays, in addition to a latenight bloc of shows that airs every Monday (technically early Tuesday morning) from midnight to 5 a.m.

What's the address for fan mail?

With the show over and done with, I don't know. I suppose you could keep writing to Bochco Productions and hope someone will forward your message along, but I have no way of knowing whether that'll happen. Anyway, that address is:

What the heck does "skell" mean?

"NYPD Blue" makes use of a lot of official and unofficial cop lingo. There's a semi-complete dictionary as part of the larger version of the FAQ, but since the question of "skell" pops up a lot, here are two definitions:

Skell:

Short-hand for "skeleton"; i.e., what most drug-users wind up looking like. A derogatory term used to describe low-life junkies. Also refers to homeless vagrants.

(From the book "The City in Slang, New York Life and Popular Speech," by Irving Lewis Allen (1993): The New York police today call the most vagrant of the male homeless skells. William Safire informs us that "it is a shortening of skellum meaning a rascal or thief, akin to a skelder, 'to beg on the streets,' first used in print by Ben Johnson in 1599, just after the playwright got out of jail for killing a man in a duel; it is possible he picked up the word from cellmate's argot." The word popped up about 1935 in the short form skell, suggesting that skellum/skell had underground oral use for centuries. Skell is now in popular speech to denote the homeless that are so visible throughout the city.)

Where is the 15th Precinct?

"NYPD Blue" is set (of course) in New York City, New York, U.S.A. The detectives work in the (fictional) 15th precinct, which covers an area larger than your average real NYPD precinct, including parts of Chinatown, Little Italy, the East Village and Alphabet City (for the non-New Yorkers, all these neighborhoods are on the lower east side of Manhattan).

The NYPD stationhouse exterior for the 15th Precinct is really the old 9th Precinct house at 321 East 5th St. between 1st & 2nd Ave., which is the same one that was used on the 70s cop series "Kojak." The real 9th Precinct moved to a new location further east, while the original building was recently demolished. Fortunately, a mock-up of the precinct facade existed on a Los Angeles backlot, so the show didn't need to use the old building in the later years.

Why did XXX leave? Why didn't they ever bring XXX back?

"NYPD Blue" had a relatively high rate of cast turnover over its years on the air. Here's a quick rundown of who left before the end, why, what they're doing now, and what happened to their character:

David Caruso (Det. John Kelly): Caruso asked for a 500% pay raise after the first season, along with several other demands (rumored to be 1)More time off to do movies, and 2)More emphasis on Kelly and less on Sipowicz). Negotiations dragged on until mid-August, at which point Steven Bochco decided enough was enough and the show had to move on. Caruso's film career never amounted to much and his "Michael Hayes" was canceled by CBS after only one season (ironically, in the same year Bochco & Milch's "Brooklyn South" suffered a similar one-and-done fate). Caruso recently returned to crime-busting as the lead in CBS' "CSI" hugely popular spin-off "CSI: Miami."
As for Det. Kelly, he quit the force instead of riding out a corruption investigation and is now working private security for rich folks. While fans often clamored for his return, it was never, ever going to happen, because Caruso's prima donna behavior during that first year endeared him to no one (he kicked a trash can at Dennis Franz's head at one point, and David Milch wrote in a book that he personally blames Caruso for at least one of his heart attacks) and because the character had been away from the police force for far too long to bring back credibly.
Jimmy Smits (Det. Bobby Simone): Smits came in as a last-minute replacement for Caruso, and signed a four-year contract in doing so. When the end of that contract was nearing, he decided it was "time to move on." He remained mum on what exactly that meant for several years, but finally confessed that he had problems adjusting to the improvisatory work habits of writer/co-creator David Milch, who would sometimes turn in script pages only minutes before the scene in question was to be shot. Jimmy graciously stuck around for five more episodes the following year so Milch could give him an on-screen exit (Bobby died of heart failure), and even returned for a one-shot appearance in the final season as the friendly ghost of Bobby Simone, back to offer some advice to his old partner. Jimmy is also appearaing on "The West Wing" as a leading presidential candidate; so he'll either become the star of the show next season once Martin Sheen finishes his term, or he'll move on to a lucrative development deal he signed with ABC.
Rick Schroder (Det. Danny Sorenson): After nearly three seasons on the show, Rick left, claiming he needed to spend more time with his wife and kids on their family ranch. That was true, but only half the story. As Rick himself recently admitted, he really left the show to help his wife get over the trauma from a late-term miscarriage. As for poor, tortured Danny, he was murdered while working an undercover investigation at a strip club.
Kim Delaney (Det. Diane Russell): Steven Bochco has always been a huge fan of Kim's, but realized that with "NYPD" being a showcase for Dennis Franz above all else, she'd never really get to show what she could do. So he created another series for her: "Philly," a legal drama set, naturally, in Philadelphia. Despite decent ratings and the fact that ABC was in awful shape at the moment, "Philly" wasn't renewed for a second season. Rather than return to "Blue," Delaney jumped to CBS to work with Caruso on "CSI: Miami," but after a few weeks the producers realized that she wasn't fitting in and negotiated themselves out of her contract. Kim made a couple of return visits to "Blue," where we saw that Diane had returned from bereavement leave and was working in the NYPD's sex crimes unit (aka Special Victims).
James McDaniel (Lt. Arthur Fancy): After seven seasons of sitting in Lt.Fancy's office feeling frustrated over the size of his role, James McDaniel decided it was time to go. The producers, eager to add as many new faces as possible to their aging show, agreed to let McDaniel leave midway through season eight, promoting Fancy to captain and bringing in Esai Morales' Lt. Rodriguez to run the 15th squad.
Amy Brenneman (Det. Janice Licalsi): With Caruso leaving, there was really nothing to do with Brenneman's character, since she was so closely linked to Kelly and no one else, so she was written out by having Janice confess to murdering Angelo Marino. Amy worked in movies for a while (notably "Heat") before finding her niche in her old Tuesday timeslot as the star of CBS' "Judging Amy," which for much of its run has drawn more viewers than "Blue" (though "Blue" has a much younger -- and therefore profitable -- audience).
Sherry Stringfield (ADA Laura Michaels Kelly): The writers ran out of material to give her character midway through the first season, and Sherry asked to be let out of her contract to make everybody happy. She quickly got cast as Dr. Susan Lewis on "ER," but the higher-profile role didn't make her any happier, and she quit in order to lead a "normal life." (That wasn't too swell, either, and Sherry has returned to "ER.") Laura was never formally written out; she just stopped appearing after the episode "Zeppo Marks Brothers."
Gail O'Grady (Donna Abandando): With the role of the squad secretary inherently limited, Gail started seeking extra-curricular work in TV-movies and other fare to challenge her. When the Fox network offered her her own sitcom (which wound up never airing), she accepted. Donna got a job with Apple Computer and moved out to Silicon Valley. She briefly reappeared during a fantasy sequence in season six's "Mister Roberts," then returned to the small screen as part of the NBC family drama "American Dreams."
Justine Miceli (Det. Adrianne Lesniak): There was never any public explanation given as to why Justine left the show, but considering the mess that was made of her character in the third season, it's not hard to guess. She hasn't exactly been a hot commodity since her exit, getting occasional work in commercials and as a series guest star, but nothing remotely as prominent as her "Blue" part. Like Laura, Lesniak was never formally written out, though, presumably, she just transferred to another precinct.
Sharon Lawrence (ADA Sylvia Costas): The death of Sylvia in a courtroom shooting at the end of the sixth season actually marked Sharon Lawrence's third exit from the show, though this one was very permanent. Never satisfied by the size of her role -- and very vocal about it, to both producers and reporters -- Sharon left after the fourth season to star in a sitcom on NBC. She had agreed to return to "Blue" whenever needed as a condition of getting out of her contract, but she actually only appeared once during the time when "Fired Up" was on the air. When NBC canceled it, Sharon returned to "Blue" on a semi-regular basis from the middle of season five through the middle of season six. But she was still displeased about the quantity and quality of her storylines, and decided she'd had enough, making a point to show up at a reception ABC was holding for reporters to get the word out that she wouldn't return without significantly better material. Eventually, Sharon and the producers reached enough of an accord to bring her back for a two-episode stint at the end of the sixth season so Sylvia could be written out for good. Sharon has had regular and recurring roles on other shows, most recently as the neighborhood dominatrix on "Desperate Housewives."
Nicholas Turturro (James Martinez): Like Janice Licalsi, Martinez was a character who was really only there to show us a side of Caruso's John Kelly, but unlike Amy Brenneman, Nick Turturro stuck around the show for years after Caruso quit. Between lack of material to play, budgetary concerns of the producers, and a sitcom development deal for Nick from the WB (which never materialized into anything), it was decided by all parties to part amicably. Martinez got a promotion to sergeant -- which, in the NYPD hierarchy, is a uniformed position but outranks detective -- and transferred to another precinct.
Andrea Thompson (Jill Kirkendall): With her 40th birthday approaching, Andrea decided she'd had enough of the acting game -- and especially the stressful job of being an actor on "NYPD Blue" -- and wanted to pursue her childhood love: journalism. After a stint as a reporter for a local New Mexico TV station, Andrea became a very controversial hire as a new anchorwoman for CNN's Headline News, a position she left after only seven months. She had a recurring role last year on "24." As for Jill Kirkendall, she left the force and went on the run with her sons, Kyle and Frank, after her slimy ex-husband Don dragged her career and name through the mud.
Esai Morales (Tony Rodriguez): Like James McDaniel before him, Esai figured out that the role of squad boss isn't the most demanding or exciting, and he decided that he didn't want to be tied down to a series in such a small part. He has a development deal with ABC, and will be continuing his role on PBS' "American Family" (if/when that show continues) in addition to whatever else he does. Tony Rodriguez quit the force to take a private security job once he realized that he was never going to get another promotion after the Fraker trial verdict went the wrong way.
Charlotte Ross (Connie McDowell): Charlotte's pregnancy, ABC's decision to lower the final season budget and professional friction between Charlotte and various members of the cast and crew led to a parting of the ways near the end of the 11th season. Bochco says he tried to get Charlotte to come back for an episode or two in the final season, just to tie up Andy's family life, but she declined.
Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon (Valerie Haywood): The budget had to be trimmed for the final season, and Garcelle, whose character was never well-integrated into the show, became one of the casualties. Valerie Haywood just isn't the local ADA for the 15th precinct anymore, and she and Baldwin don't seem to be dating anymore.
John O'Donohue (Eddie Gibson): Though he'd been hanging around the show for years, O'Donohue wound up with the shortest tenure of any regular castmember, only a half-season. Essentially, the producers decided that the Gibson-as-boss idea wasn't really bearing fruit, so they replaced O'Donohue with Currie Graham. As Lt. Bale told the detectives at the end of the final season premiere, Eddie was replaced as 15th squad commander because NYPD brass felt the squad was out of control.

I want to know more about the show. Where can I go?

I maintain a website at

http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html

that features all manner of material about the show, including episode reviews, pictures, cast biographies, and a much longer version of this FAQ.

-Alan Sepinwall