- Network: ABC
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 26, 1990
Critic Reviews
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This is the longest leap of imagination TV viewers have ever been asked to make, and at first the chasm may look wider than the Grand Canyon. It's a magnificent optical illusion. Your chances of bridging the gap are actually quite good, but it may take more than one try. [26 Sep 1990, p.E1]
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It's fresh, invigorating and one of the true highlights of the new season. ... Even without the score and choreography, "Cop Rock" is a compelling, well-acted police series that indeed does (as some of its critics charge) echo Bochco's late, great "Hill Street Blues," almost as if he meant it as a homage to his own work.
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This is not the most seamless pilot of the season, or the most enjoyable. But nobody whets the appetite for more as well as Bochco. "Cop Rock" is the most exciting program of the fall season. [26 Sep 1990, p.47]
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Seattle Post-IntelligencerMay 16, 2016So bizarre it must be seen to be disbelieved. [17 Sep 1990, p.D1]
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"Cop Rock" is less innovation than next logical step (some might even say overdue step) for an increasingly music-conscious medium. [26 Sep 1990, p.1C]
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As a cop show, it gets down with all the gamy fervor you'd expect from Bochco. ... But as a rock musical, it reeks - of awkwardness, to be sure, but also of an audacious recklessness, at its best exploring a fresh canvas of raucous absurdism or emotionalism. It challenges and sometimes violates your expectations, but more important, it entertains. [26 Sep 1990, p.1D]
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Even when the transition from music to drama seems abrupt, or the staging of a number a bit too prosaic, "Cop Rock" has the audaciousness and energy of a true original, plus moments of brilliance that are almost blinding. [26 Sep 1990, p.C1]
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Overall, the pilot for "Cop Rock" has too many flaws to be called great television. But it is daring, exciting and innovative television -- with moments where music and drama meet to touch the heart in ways television all too rarely does.
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This is as slick as prime-time gets, a clever amalgam of TV drama and Broadway musical. ... Still, it seems a shame that so much writing, acting and musical talent is being devoted to such tired and simplistic polemics. [26 Sep 1990]
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Certain scenes are powerful, even exhilarating. Others don't work at all. [23 Sep 1990]
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Cop Rock is neither a realistic police drama nor a convincing musical. It's an experiment that's rarely arresting. [26 Sep 1990, p.D1]
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If the musical element seems this strained in the pilot, when the vastly talented Randy Newman is the composer of all of the songs, one dreads to think how bad it will be after the show has settled in for a few weeks and is struggling for viable melodies.
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The songs in the pilot weren't top-notch [Randy] Newman — if you heard them on one of his albums, you'd think he had lost his touch. And if a songwriter as gifted as Newman can't redeem Bochco's concept, how will any of the other, probably lesser, talents that Bochco will employ on future episodes fare any better? It's too bad, because without the music, Cop Rock is a solid cop show.
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I don't like safe TV. I admire anyone who tries to experiment. But "Cop Rock" doesn't work. [25 Sep 1990]
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By the time the show ended, I disliked it a lot, but I kept an open mind. ... I watched it a second time. And a third time. I now believe I can praise Bochco and ABC for trying to do something different and, at the same time, say that "Cop Rock" is a bomb of major proportions. [17 Sep 1990, p.1D]