On Wednesdays, I take a look at a series that lasted one season or less. Here is a look at Cop Rock!
COP ROCK
September 26, 1990 - December 26, 1990
11 episodes
ABC
Starring: Anne Bobby, Barbara Bosson, David Gianopoulos, Larry Joshua, James McDaniel, Ron McLarty, Mick Murray, Peter Onorati and Ronny Cox
Created by: Steven Bochco & William M. Finkelstein
Plot: It was basically Hill Street Blues: The Musical (incidentally, that concept was what inspired this show). A gritty cop drama peppered with musical numbers. The series was set in Los Angeles and centered on a police station led by Chief Roger Kendrick (Cox). The rest of the cast made up the musically inclined detectives and officers within the precinct while they all had to deal with Mayor Louise Plank (Bosson).
This show has become infamous and it's easy to see why. At one moment it just felt like a generic cop show of its era (which meant some outdated police tropes but it is what it is for the time). But then they burst into song and it got real weird real quick. It also was not fully committed to the musical bits by spacing them far enough apart which made it seem more like they were taking it seriously (which they were) than leaning into the campiness. The first musical number occurred before Randy Newman's music video-like credits while the second number didn't happen until about 20 minutes in with a bizarre love song. Another insane moment was a gospel number from the jurors in the courtroom that came towards the end of the pilot (though that song was actually probably the best one but still ridiculous).
The performances were forgettable including Steven Bochco favorites James McDaniel and Barbara Bosson (Bosson was okay but not much of a singer) but I just need to get back to the whole idea behind it and why it didn't work. There's no logical reason for the musical numbers. They serve absolutely no purpose. I am a big fan of musicals and a firm believer that it can be a great form of storytelling but not as it was employed here. They brought the tenuous story to a halt and didn't advance the story at all. Something more recent like Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist was uneven but used its musical numbers often to tell us something important in the plot. In Cop Rock, nothing was established in songs that was absolutely vital to the story and that was the problem because they didn't fully embrace it for fun or fully for story. They tried to straddle in the middle and it didn't work at all.
Cop Rock is known now as one of the most notorious flops in TV history. It has frequently appeared on TV's "worst of all time" lists. What's surprising is before it aired, it wasn't universally reviled. There were some critics who at least noted the ambition and uniqueness of the show plus Steven Bochco had a lot of good will with critics after the beloved Hill Street Blues. It seems obvious that this was a terrible idea but the truth is there is some revisionist history that happened with that. Not everyone thought it was a terrible idea until it bombed and then everyone laughed at ABC for putting such a ridiculous show on the air. That being said, there were also critics who pointed out from the jump how terrible the show was.
Cop Rock premiered to OK ratings but things fell apart very quickly for it on Wednesday nights. The series aired 11 episodes before it was cancelled and gone for good though it has occasionally popped up in flops marathons and things like that. It also was notorious enough of a flop that a complete series DVD was made. It also won two Emmys, one for editing and one for, of course, music and lyrics. Steven Bochco redeemed himself on ABC a few years later with the huge success of NYPD Blue, a cop show that was everything Cop Rock wasn't. Musical TV shows have continued to be a very mixed bag over the years. There have been hits like Glee but also more epic bombs like Viva Laughlin and in-betweens like a hate-watching favorite Smash. I'm sure it's a format that will continue to happen. Who knows, maybe we'll see singing cops again sometime.
Tomorrow: A look at the first half of the second season of Get Smart!
Next Wednesday; A One Season Wonder look at 1989's Living Dolls!
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