All episodes Season 5 S05E12 1998-01-13 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

A Box of Wendy

TV Flash files “A Box of Wendy” as hour 100 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 5, episode 12, aired 1998-01-13, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S05E12: listed hour 100 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 12 of 22 in season 5. It aired 1998-01-13 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “You're Under a Rasta” (S05E11). Next is “Twin Petes” (S05E13).

NYPD Blue — A Box of Wendy (S05E12)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

In the 100th episode of the series, an attractive woman is found dead in a valuable wooden box. Andy and Bobby link the crime to her stupid, worthless brother, but it takes a few bottles of Coca-Cola to get the whole story. Diane's pregnancy weighs on her mind when an unloving mother's louse of a boyfriend accidentally kills her son. Greg, James and Jill catch a murder at a car-repair shop that turns complicated when the family of the victim says they and God forgive the killer.

Viewer FAQ

Where does A Box of Wendy sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S05E12 is listed hour 100 of 261 — hour 12 of 22 in season 5, season 5 episode 12.

When did NYPD Blue S05E12 air?

A Box of Wendy aired 1998-01-13 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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