The term “showrunner” is tossed around a lot today in television. You never really heard it, however, until Steven Bochco came along. Bochco, who cut his teeth writing for ’70s detective shows such as Ironside, Columbo and McMillan & Wife, co-created a string of hits starting in the early 1980s with Hill Street Blues, LA
On Tuesday, CHML’s AM900 morning host Bill Kelly suggested to me that Steven Bochco was to television what Steven Spielberg was to movies. Both moved their medium forward. Bochco certainly was an innovator as a writer and story editor, combining serial elements into police procedurals. Bochco also encouraged Hill Street Blues pilot director Robert Butler to literally
Way back when I was a young Turk at TV Guide Canada I was asked to get Steven Bochco on the phone. I thought the request was pure madness. At that time and for many years afterwards, Bochco was TV’s top showrunner, the much-admired writer/producer behind such groundbreaking hits as Hill Street Blues and L.A.
Getting busted in ’86 by Hill Street cops Warren and Haid. Photo: Gene Trindl When people talk of this new “Golden Age” of television, shows such as The Wire and The Sopranos are often cited as the starting point. Kiefer Sutherland–back as Jack Bauer in Fox’s revival of another respected show, 24–says the spark goes farther