NYPD Blue
Top Gum
TV Flash files “Top Gum” as the first listed hour of season 6 — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 6, episode 1, aired 1998-10-20, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S06E01: listed hour 111 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, first listed hour of season 6. It aired 1998-10-20 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Honeymoon at Viagra Falls” (S05E22). Next is “Cop in a Bottle” (S06E02).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Simone, Sipowicz, and Fancy are annoyed by the presence of retired cop Mike Roberts, who has been hired by the murder victim's father to keep a lid on his son's alleged homosexuality. Meanwhile, Costas lends a big assist to Russell and Kirkendall in their investigation of a teenage girl's rape, and Bobby Simone helps scare away the lowlife boyfriend of his dentist's daughter but is clearly not feeling well.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Top Gum sit in the NYPD Blue guide?
S06E01 is listed hour 111 of 261 — first listed hour of season 6, season 6 episode 1.
When did NYPD Blue S06E01 air?
Top Gum aired 1998-10-20 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…