All episodes Season 5 S05E16 1998-03-03 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

The One That Got Away

TV Flash files “The One That Got Away” as hour 104 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 5, episode 16, aired 1998-03-03, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S05E16: listed hour 104 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 16 of 22 in season 5. It aired 1998-03-03 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Don't Kill the Messenger” (S05E15). Next is “Speak For Yourself, Bruce Clayton” (S05E17).

NYPD Blue — The One That Got Away (S05E16)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

Andy and Bobby continue to investigate Tommy Richardson, but none of their ideas work and the most Andy can do is warn Tommy to transfer out of the 15th. Two thugs beat up a student filmmaker and steal his camera, but Diane and Jill are worried the filmmaker will seek his own revenge. Greg gets an emergency call from Abby only to learn she's not in labor. And Andy is confronted & comforted by Sylvia after she gets the word about his health: he has prostate cancer.

Viewer FAQ

Where does The One That Got Away sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S05E16 is listed hour 104 of 261 — hour 16 of 22 in season 5, season 5 episode 16.

When did NYPD Blue S05E16 air?

The One That Got Away aired 1998-03-03 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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