All episodes Season 5 S05E04 1997-10-28 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

The Truth is Out There

TV Flash files “The Truth is Out There” as hour 92 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 5, episode 4, aired 1997-10-28, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S05E04: listed hour 92 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 4 of 22 in season 5. It aired 1997-10-28 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Three Girls and a Baby” (S05E03). Next is “It Takes a Village” (S05E05).

NYPD Blue — The Truth is Out There (S05E04)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

As Andy ponders the lyrics to "Pop Goes the Weasel", he and Bobby must help a murder witness who has a perfect head for details but is otherwise out of her mind. After she gets kidnapped, Andy's hypocrisy gets a workout when he castigates ADA Leo Cohen for making a deal to get her back safely, leading Jill to give Leo some kind words. Greg and James find out an Indian man's brother is behind a series of cab robberies.

Viewer FAQ

Where does The Truth is Out There sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S05E04 is listed hour 92 of 261 — hour 4 of 22 in season 5, season 5 episode 4.

When did NYPD Blue S05E04 air?

The Truth is Out There aired 1997-10-28 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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