All episodes Season 6 S06E04 1998-11-17 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

Brother's Keeper

TV Flash files “Brother's Keeper” as hour 114 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 6, episode 4, aired 1998-11-17, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S06E04: listed hour 114 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 4 of 22 in season 6. It aired 1998-11-17 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Numb & Number” (S06E03). Next is “Hearts and Souls” (S06E05).

NYPD Blue — Brother's Keeper (S06E04)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

Lieutenant Fancy urgently reaches out to the entire New York City police department for assistance in resolving Simone's critical medical condition, while his co-workers at the 15th Precinct are frustrated by their inability to help their ailing comrade. Meanwhile, Sipowicz, Medavoy and Martinez investigate two brothers in the brutal murder of their 72-year-old mother.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Brother's Keeper sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S06E04 is listed hour 114 of 261 — hour 4 of 22 in season 6, season 6 episode 4.

When did NYPD Blue S06E04 air?

Brother's Keeper aired 1998-11-17 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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