He's swaggeringly wordy, too.

"A lot of people have said, 'Well, gosh, it's a good show, what do you need all that stuff for?' And my argument is maybe it wouldn't be quite as good a show without it. Maybe it wouldn't be perceived as having quite the focus or quite the energy or quite the specificity or quite the contemporary feel that it has if not for those elements that some are squawking about."

Squawking aside, Blue is your basic two-partner police drama. John Kelly is a good guy whose marriage to Laura (Sherry Stringfield, 26, formerly the conniving Blake Lindsey on The Guiding Light) is on the rocks and who sustains a flickering romance with fellow cop Janice Licalsi (Amy Brenneman), who's entagled with the mob. Andy Sipowicz, Kelly's older partner, is a cop with a short fuse and a busted personal life. Sipowicz and Kelly report to Lieut. Arthur Fancy (James McDaniel), a black man giving orders in a society that was formerly very white. The rookie in the department is Officer James Martinez (Nicholas Turturro), itchy for a taste of action.

"There isn't a theme that we will touch on that wasn't touched on in Hill Street, but I think the manner will be identifiably different," says Blue cocreator and executive producer Milch, who writes many of the scripts. "For instance, the racism is much more overt a theme. Certainly we did stories about racism on Hill Street. But the New York City Police Department is soaked in...let's say racial awareness as a good neutral term. It would be unrealistic to try and do a series about the department without taking that theme up."

Another day, another New York location for the company, which abandons its L.A. studios every couple of months to shoot on the streets of the Big Apple. At the entrance to the main branch of the New York Public Library in mid-Manhattan, a midday crowd gathers to watch Patrolwoman Licalsi stride up the grand steps to meet an informant. Brenneman, 29, a hazel-eyed Harvard graduate with a degree in comparative religions, is, like many Bochco Rep players, an unknown, and onlookers barely register her presence as she rehearses. But they step aside and nod knowingly when Franz strolls by. One of Bochco's signature strengths is galothering a loyal company in series after series—highly talented actors with faces lit more by character strength than by standard TV beauty. And none is more recognizable or less beautiful than Franz, who first grabbed attention on Hill Street as dangerous bad cop Sal Benedetto. When Benedetto died (of a self-inflicted gunshot wound), the popular Franz was recycled as sleazy detective Norman Buntz. The slimeball eventually drew enough of an affectionate following to be spun off into his own short-lived show, Beverly Hills Buntz.

With his tough mug, bullish physique, and unrepentant Chicago accent, Franz, 49, looks bred to play guys either enforcing the law or breaking it. But after 26 other cop roles in his career, he finds Sipowicz refreshing. "This is the lowest I've ever been able to play a character," says Franz. "Sipowicz is living with somewhat of a death wish—he had given up. He's a good cop gone bad, and now we're trying to make him go good again."

One breakthrough Franz is pleased about is that for the first time, one of his cop characters finds love. "Finally! Sipowicz gets a woman!" he says, chewing gum with satisfaction. "I have always tried to fight for a relationship. I wanted a black female relationship, and I kept asking for that back on Hill Street. They thought that was a little too restricted an area for us to go into at the time. Then on Buntz I requested the same thing, and we didn't get into that either. I'm not gonna say that it happens on this one, but I'm not gonna say that the door is not open for it to happen."

As the principal declaimer of all that is crude and linguistically raw on Blue, Franz is keenly aware of advances in the fight for freedom of foul-mouthed expression. "Some of the original drafts of the Hill Street scripts had these words. But we knew it was just gonna be a matter of time when hairballs would (be used to) replace whatever we were really wanting to say. And freaking would replace the obvious."