In 2020, there’s nothing of the sort as an ill-conceived notion for a network show. The medium has decidedly detonated regarding sheer volume, on account of the ascent of bunch real-time features — and with that blast has come a close perpetual surge of imaginative undertakings both incredibly fruitful and not recommended.
This tsunami of substance has successfully eradicated the primary expression of the frequently referred to “Brilliant Age of TV,” to where there’s a whole real-time feature (but likely not for any longer) apparently committed to the most noticeably terrible thoughts conceivable, from Judge Judy-Esque Chrissy Teigen unscripted television shows and Reese Witherspoon-described girl boss nature projects to awkward Twilight Zone-isms overflowing for distortion.
In any case, in 1990, any thought that wandered a long way based on what was set up as “the standard” (sitcoms, game shows, procedurals, serialized cleansers) was viably a difficult exercise of a danger, fit for collapsing for all intents and purposes upon sway if too jostling or misguided.
There was a minimal possibility of getting a subsequent season “to develop” — particularly not for Cop Rock, which debuted 30 years back this Saturday and was behind closed doors three months after the fact.
The confusing and to a great extent horrendous crossover of a creation — which endeavored to consolidate lumpy police procedurals, cumbersome humorous satire, and the showiness of Broadway musicals — began from two TV veterans (Steven Bochco and William M. Finkelstein) who were falling off a series of hits that included Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law.
In a 2016 oral history of Cop Rock that was distributed on The A.V. Club two years before Bochco’s demise, he guaranteed that the thought for the show began from a Broadway maker’s enthusiasm for creating a melodic adaptation of Hill Street Blues.
