NYPD Blue
Prostrate Before the Law
TV Flash files “Prostrate Before the Law” as hour 107 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 5, episode 19, aired 1998-04-28, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E19: listed hour 107 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 19 of 22 in season 5. It aired 1998-04-28 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “I Don't Wanna Dye” (S05E18). Next is “Hammer Time” (S05E20).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
James and Greg reveal that Gina and Abby have given birth. Andy undergoes his prostate surgery and suffers through the agonizing first steps in his recovery process. The rest of the squad catches the murder of an Army veteran who was in town with five buddies from his service days. The more the cops talk to them, the more they think they have uncovered a larger and more dangerous problem.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Prostrate Before the Law sit in the NYPD Blue guide?
S05E19 is listed hour 107 of 261 — hour 19 of 22 in season 5, season 5 episode 19.
When did NYPD Blue S05E19 air?
Prostrate Before the Law aired 1998-04-28 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…
Filed against
- Dennis Franz as Andy Sipowicz
Dennis Franz’s Andy Sipowicz made NYPD Blue the decade’s great network antihero badge — bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace, Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud. Butts, badges, twelve seasons of language…
- David Caruso as John Kelly
David Caruso’s John Kelly made NYPD Blue’s first climb a redhead with a bruise — Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud, butts, badges, language fights. Dennis Franz’s Sipowicz is the long furnace; Caruso is the…
- Jimmy Smits as Bobby Simone
Jimmy Smits’s Victor Sifuentes made L.A. Law a Latino lead in Bochco gloss — 1980s catalog elevator-sex water-cooler firm, then NYPD Blue stretching the steel into butts, badges, and Sipowicz weather. TV Flash files him as the associate…
- Kim Delaney as Diane Russell
Kim Delaney's Diane Russell brought NYPD Blue a detective pulse beside Sipowicz — Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud, precinct grit, language fights, twelve seasons of badge weather. The desk files her as 1990s…
- Gordon Clapp as Greg Medavoy
Gordon Clapp's Greg Medavoy survived NYPD Blue's precinct grind — Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud, Sipowicz as the moral furnace, twelve seasons of language fights and cast shakeups. TV Flash files him as…