BOBBY SIMONE: You want to know why I don't miss David Caruso? Watching 
the "Andy falls off the wagon" arc unfold, I kept thinking back to a 
moment at the very end of the first season of the show. This was shortly 
after Andy fell off the wagon for a time, and there's a scene where John 
and Andy are walking into the precinct, and Kelly asks, "How you doin' 
with the booze? You gonna get some help with that?" Caruso said the lines 
with all the emotion you would expect from Kelly deciding what to order 
for dinner, because he was supremely disinterested in any storyline that 
didn't have Kelly as the focus.

Jimmy Smits, on the other hand, has turned out to be a fabulous team 
player, and the way he was able to give a great *supporting* 
performance as Bobby tried to help Andy, was a real pleasure to watch. 
These two have wonderful chemistry - I sincerely doubt the "Do you want my 
help, Andy?" scene in the emergency room would have been half as touching 
had it been between Caruso and Franz. (Then again, I also doubt 
Caruso would have consented to appear in so many Andy-heavy episodes 
in a row, but that's besides the point.)

But despite a number of great episodes spotlighting Bobby ("Aging Bull" 
and "Hollie and the Blowfish," to name two), we still know precious 
little about what makes him tick. Right now, the single defining element 
for the character is his wife's death, which has put him into a 
protective shell from which he only occasionally escapes. And while Smits 
is fantastic at playing Bobby in his introverted moments, I still want to 
know more about him. Was he always this quiet? Just how much did his 
wife's death change him? What drove him to become a cop in the first 
place? That sort of thing. Rumor has it that Smits himself is looking for 
a bit of expansion of the character; I look forward to it. 

ANDY SIPOWICZ: With Smits firmly established now, and with the writers 
not being thrown the late-summer curveball of having to write out the 
main character and bring in a new one, you would think they wouldn't 
have to rely on Dennis Franz so heavily. You would think so, and yet Andy 
was even more the focus this year than in season one, which was primarily 
about Kelly, or season two, which was dominated by the casework. But 
considering how wonderful Dennis Franz is, I can hardly blame David Milch 
and the rest of the writers for putting him front and center so often. 

At the beginning of the season, I was a bit annoyed by how cute 'n cuddly 
Andy was becoming. Sure, he growled at suspects, but he was a teddy bear 
at home, as exemplified by how goofy he behaved about Sylvia's 
pregnancy. But I realize now that we were just being set up, that Andy 
had to reach a true comfort zone if his fall at the death of Andy Jr. would 
have maximum impact. 

And in the interim, we saw on occasion that Andy's rough edges aren't 
totally sanded away, in episodes like "Heavin' Can Wait" and, in 
particular, "The Backboard Jungle." It's no coincidence that three of the 
best episodes of the season (those two and "Closing Time") featured Andy 
squaring off against the other regulars. 

But in a way, I think the best bit of characterization all year for Andy 
was his lessons to Andy Jr. I know that they're all pretty much verbatim 
from a friend of Bill Clark's (as recounted in "True Blue"), but they still 
said so much about why Andy does what he does despite the horrors he sees 
every day. I only wish we had such a strong idea of why the rest of the 
regulars (aside from Fancy, who we've been given a good idea about) 
joined the force.

My one concern is that, since his character's been run through such an 
emotional gauntlet during the past several years, where can he go from 
here? I think a lot of that depends on how Sharon Lawrence is going to be 
written out. If Sylvia leaves Andy, we may be in store for an even more 
hard-nosed Sipowicz. If, on the other hand, it's just a case of her job 
taking her places other than the One-Five, then the writers will have to 
find some internal means of generating conflict for Andy. Is he really 
all the way back from the gutter? How majorly has Andy Jr's death, or his 
rediscovery of his faith, affected his worldview? Are his problems with 
Fancy behind him once and for all? I'm looking forward to seeing the 
writing staff and Dennis Franz take on the challenge of answering some of 
these questions.

ARTHUR FANCY: James McDaniel must be champing at the bit by now. 
Three seasons of the show have gone by, and though he does wonders with 
every single spotlight he's given, they're still too few and far between. 
Only three episodes all season ("Cold Heaters", "The Backboard Jungle", 
and "Closing Time") really featured Fancy in any kind of prominence, and 
McDaniel was smashing in each. 

Some might argue that, like Donna, the mere fact of Fancy's job title 
precludes them from writing more stories for him. I have to disagree 
wholeheartedly on that one. Intra-departmental wrangling alone oughta 
provide story possibilities: actually seeing what Fancy has to go through 
to keep the bosses of his detectives' backs, rather than just hearing about 
it. In addition, Fancy should be treated, in a way, as the best detective in 
the squad, with everyone else coming to him if they're running into walls, 
like the way Fancy bailed Bobby out in terms of getting Andy's gun back in 
"Closing Time."

That episode also contained another aspect of Fancy's personality that 
I'd love to see explored more. When he's talking to Andy up in Greg's crib, 
he suggests that the next fight would prove fatal, leaving Sylvia without a 
husband, Theo without a father, and, would put some people in jail for 
the rest of their lives "for something that didn't have to be." Perhaps 
because of his background, the Loo has a very acute sense of the thin 
line that most people walk every day, and of how easy it is to get pushed 
over to the wrong side. None of the detectives in the squad seem to look 
at the world in as many different shades of grey as Fancy, and that 
differed viewpoint is very welcome.

JAMES MARTINEZ: Last year, it seemed that the writers weren't quite sure 
what to do with James. He'd been in the squad for a year, and Nick 
Turturro was starting to look just a little long in the tooth for all the 
"rookie detective" material to keep playing. Most of the time, he was 
reduced to playing third fiddle to all the other detectives. And, with a 
few exceptions (most notably his boxing exploits and his brief stint 
moonlighting as a bodyguard), even his more prominent parts didn't 
feature much in the way of characterization, as James' subplots required 
little more from him than a grimace. The part was written with such 
little life that I kept having "Dragnet" flashbacks everytime Turturro spoke 
("This is New York. My name's Martinez. I carry a badge. And I work the 
canvas").

But this year, for the most part, the writers seem to have gotten a 
handle on the character, carving a niche for him as the squad everyman, 
and as the one truly uncorrupted person on the show (except baby Theo, of 
course). If it hadn't been for Turturro's overwhelming gentleness in 
"Sorry, Wong Suspect," the entire relationship with Lesniak would've 
turned out to be a far bigger fiasco than it was. And Turturro managed to 
get into a nice rhythm with Gordon Clapp whenever James and Greg got 
paired together - their wisecracking became a nice counterpoint to the 
often overwhelming seriousness of the Simone/Sipowicz partnership. And 
despite the fact that I've seen Nick do quite well playing a tough guy in 
roles outside of Blue, the moments where he most faltered this year on 
the show were when Martinez started playing Bad Cop in interrogation. 

And with the Lesniak relationship hopefully out of the way for good, I'd 
like to see what new directions the writers take James in. How long can 
he go as the innocent one before some experience finally gets to him once 
and for all? He's made it past his brother's death and his own shooting 
without too much of an impact on his worldview; just what is James' breaking 
point? 

SYLVIA COSTAS: Like Gail O'Grady, Sharon Lawrence's extra-curricular 
activities (doing sex scenes with Brian Austin Green, that sort of thing) 
seemed to make it tough for the writers to do much with Sylvia beyond 
the usual TV pregnant woman schtick. For instance, they might have been 
able to use her instead of ADA Cohen during the two-parter about the 
murder of Diane's father, and we could've seen Sylvia torn between 
loyalty to her own office and to her husband's. Lawrence has always been 
at her best in the on-the-job scenes, but she wasn't around for enough of 
those this year.

But when Sharon was around and given material to play besides the by 
now cliched "Sylvia gets irritated with Andy for being insensitive" 
subplots, she was excellent, particularly in the season's closing four 
episodes.  I have no idea how she'll be written out, for the most part - 
will Sylvia and Andy seperate, or will it just be a simple case of having 
Sylvia transferred to another precinct, so we don't see her very often?
Either way, I'll miss having her around most of the time, as she's easily 
my favorite female character in the series' brief history.

GREG MEDAVOY: I said it in my review of "He's Not Guilty...", but this is 
a comment I think bears repeating: of all the performers on the show, 
Gordon Clapp is probably the best at getting so far into his character's 
skin that you forget there's an actor underneath. When that camera's 
rolling, he _is_ Greg Medavoy.

That's why I'm particularly excited about the developments we saw in the 
season finale. Clapp has spent the past three years doing the hyper-
neurosis thing to perfection, and while I think he's too natural at it 
for it to have grown old, I always like seeing characters go off in new 
directions, especially when they seem in the natural arc of their 
character. What's so potentially great about this "Happy Medavoy" is that 
the man has absolutely no clue what being happy is really all about - 
here's a guy who takes enormous pride in being allergy-free. I imagine 
that an upbeat Greg has the possibility of being even more annoying to 
his co-workers (and therfore more entertaining to us fans) than the 
miserable version was. 

DONNA ABANDANDO: The writers had two big problems finding stuff for Donna 
to do this year: 1)Gail O'Grady was away half the time making films and 
TV movies, and they didn't know whether she'd be available when they 
wrote their scripts; and 2)Once Donna broke up with Greg, there wasn't 
much else to do with the character. Think about it: she's the squad's 
secretary. Would they put in subplots about her having difficulties with 
the new filing system? 

Bochco and Milch had the same problem back on Hill Street Blues, when 
they promoted Robert Hirschfeld, who played Leo the khaki officer, to 
regular cast status at the start of the fifth season. Leo got a couple of 
storylines about his failed marriage, and once it became apparent that 
there wasn't much else to write about the precinct desk clerk, 
Hirschfeld's face and name were removed from the opening credits, even 
though he was still around. Similarly, once Donna's affair with one of 
the detectives ended, what more could they write about? Ideally, the 
squad PAA role should be written like Jerry the desk clerk on "ER": a
quirky character who serves a plot function and occasionally adds some 
color, but who doesn't need to have many (or any) storylines written 
about him or her. Bill Brochtrup would've been perfect in such a role, 
since most of Upstairs John's appearances fit that basic guideline, but 
he's gone on to other endeavors, alas. 

But back to Donna/O'Grady. Gail did wonders with what little material she 
had, and in episodes where Donna did more than give out phone messages 
(like her confrontation with Marie Medavoy or the episode where she got 
Diane to help out her hairdresser), she got to show just why fans were 
clamoring for more of her. Gail's a very natural, vibrant performer 
who essentially created her character from the "cartoon hairstyle" (to 
quote Scott Hollifield) on down. She'll be missed.

ADRIANNE LESNIAK: Oy vey. Where to begin? As I'm writing this, I just 
read off the wire that Justine Miceli is leaving the show. On the one 
hand, I'm disheartened that yet *another* female character is leaving -- 
once Sharon Lawrence's NBC sitcom starts, Kim Delaney will be the only woman 
appearing most weeks. On the other hand, I think it may be for the best, 
since, IMHO, Lesniak was so thoroughly ruined this year that it would 
have taken a lot of effort for me to take the character seriously again.

Coming into the season, Lesniak was the character most in need of 
definition, as all we really saw last year was a cool customer who for 
some uknown reason caught James' eye. And the writers did, in fact, spend 
quite a lot of time this year developing Adrianne. The only problem is they 
transformed her from an interesting, if somewhat hazy, personality into 
an indecisive tower of jello, and then into a cartoony bitch on wheels. 

For starters, the relationship between her and James never made sense at 
any point. He's not her type, and she's not his. But let's take that out 
of the equation for now. The interesting possibilities raised by the 
suggestion that Lesniak might be a lesbian -- like a more ongoing focus 
on how the department relates to gay officers -- were quickly dashed, as 
Adrianne, using logic that would get her thrown out of a third grade math 
class, decided that the only reason she felt she might be a lesbian is 
because all her old boyfriends treated her like dirt. Paging Ricki Lake...

And then, once she and James finally got together and consumated the 
relationship, she turned into a pit viper for no good reason. We've seen 
the male characters on the show act overprotective of their love interests 
(it's hard to find an episode where either Bobby or Andy *doesn't* act 
too macho towards either Diane or Sylvia), but in those cases, it's 
treated as a slight bit of chauvinism at worst and strong devotion at best. 
Adrianne's behavior, on the other hand, was treated as if she were being 
played by Glenn Close circa "Fatal Attraction," which didn't sit well 
with me at all. 

And here's something interesting of note: Theresa Rebeck, the only woman 
on the regular writing staff (and the only female writer this year), did 
not feature the ongoing Adrianne story in any of her scripts this year. 
Coincidence or subtle political statement? Beats me, but I'd sure like to 
find out. 

DIANE RUSSELL: A lot of people watch NYPD Blue for a lot of different 
things. Some watch it for the police procedurals. Some watch it for the 
rich characterization. Some watch it for the sex and romance. Since my 
primary reason for watching isn't the latter, the character of Diane 
wasn't one of my favorites, because her primary function was to be 
Bobby's love interest. Now, I have no objection to having romance on the 
show, but if it's going to get prominent play, then it should find some 
way to tie into  other things going on with the character(s). That's why 
I've never minded Andy's relationship with Sylvia, as it serves as a good 
symbol of Andy's rise from the depths. 

But the Bobby/Diane romance has never really had that kind of emotional 
heft to it, because these two are largely drawn to each other out of 
sexual attraction. There's nothing wrong with that, but it also makes 
subplots about their relationship inherently less interesting to me. 
Fortunately, the second half of the season downplayed their relationship 
quite a bit, so when it did pop up (the dinner scene in "Hollie and the 
Blowfish", for instance), it didn't seem forced.

And with the decreased emphasis on her relationship with Bobby, the 
writers had no choice but to flesh out Diane as a character, to the point 
where if Franz and Smits are #1 on the totem pole, Kim Delaney has 
become 1A. Has any other character on the show gotten a two-episode 
spotlight like the arc about Diane's family in the middle of the season, 
for instance? And, like with Nick Turturro, Kim seems to have found her 
niche by playing Diane as fairly relaxed, clever, and sharp-witted, but also 
eager to learn. If she can be written the way she was in "Hollie..." 
every time out (hand jobs at the dinner table aside :-)), I'd have no 
problems with the character whatsoever.

Alan Sepinwall * e-mail: sepinwal@force.stwing.upenn.edu
Homepage: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/
NYPD Blue page: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html 

(NON)RANDOM QUOTE:

"Can you honestly tell me the difference between man meat and animal meat?"
	-Dennis Franz, "NYPD Blue"