All episodes Season 5 S05E03 1997-10-14 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

Three Girls and a Baby

TV Flash files “Three Girls and a Baby” as hour 91 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 5, episode 3, aired 1997-10-14, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S05E03: listed hour 91 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 3 of 22 in season 5. It aired 1997-10-14 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “All's Wells That Ends Well” (S05E02). Next is “The Truth is Out There” (S05E04).

NYPD Blue — Three Girls and a Baby (S05E03)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

Greg swings into action when Abby's lover is murdered during a break-in, tying the case to a disturbed figure from Abby's past. The rest of the squad tries to unravel the case of a young woman who was shot and then burnt beyond recognition.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Three Girls and a Baby sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S05E03 is listed hour 91 of 261 — hour 3 of 22 in season 5, season 5 episode 3.

When did NYPD Blue S05E03 air?

Three Girls and a Baby aired 1997-10-14 and is listed at 60 minutes.

Why was it controversial?

It pushed mid-1990s network limits on profanity, partial nudity, and adult subject matter — the standards-and-practices war was weekly news.

In the series

Why this series still plays

Butts, badges, and Sipowicz — Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud. Dennis Franz's alcoholic detective is the decade's great network antihero badge: bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace. Twelve seasons of language fights, cast shakeups, and precinct grit that primed living rooms for flawed cops before cable took the patent.

Flash: September 21, 1993, ABC, Manhattan South. Butts, badges, and a language fight already in the EPK. Steven Bochco and David Milch did not ask the museum guard whether broadcast was allowed to be adult out loud. They put detectives on a shift where alcoholism, divorce, and precinct politics bleed into the case. Dennis Franz's Andy Sipowicz is the decade's great network antihero badge — bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace. Sources close to Standards & Practices were *unavailable for comment*. They were…

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