All episodes Season 8 S08E13 2001-04-03 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

Flight of Fancy

TV Flash files “Flight of Fancy” as hour 167 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 8, episode 13, aired 2001-04-03, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S08E13: listed hour 167 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 13 of 20 in season 8. It aired 2001-04-03 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Thumb Enchanted Evening” (S08E12). Next is “Nariz a Nariz” (S08E14).

NYPD Blue — Flight of Fancy (S08E13)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

As Lieutenant Fancy moves on to his new position as a captain, the sadness felt by the detectives of the 15th precinct is compounded by the chafing ways of his replacement, an icy, tough, female detective. And then, as though in answer to their prayers, she's out — and the detectives anxiously await details on the next candidate to occupy their beloved Fancy's office. Meanwhile, a teenage immigrant girl with a troubled past is murdered and the suspects are many.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Flight of Fancy sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S08E13 is listed hour 167 of 261 — hour 13 of 20 in season 8, season 8 episode 13.

When did NYPD Blue S08E13 air?

Flight of Fancy aired 2001-04-03 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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