As far as I'm concerned, "Gee, Officer Krupke" is the pinnacle of American musical theater. I'm not a big musical guy, but West Side Story is always gonna be all right in my book.

Truth. If a couple of people who looked like Henry Simmons and Charlotte Ross showed up at my door claiming to be cops, I'd suspect something unseemly was up.

Two partners, even!

Phrasing!

"Douchebag" and "dickhead" never sounded better than they did coming out of Dennis Franz's mouth.

My crush on Donna Abandando was far beyond reasonable.

Oh man, you dropped out before they killed off Sylvia? You don't know the half of the the fucking with Sipowicz.

Yet ironically, when Charlotte Ross refused to come back for the final season as Andy's wife, they finally decided Sipowicz had suffered enough and opted to keep her alive while writing/shooting around her absence in increasingly awkward ways.

The casting really is phenomenal, Kim Delaney aside. Virtually every early episode features a bit part by an actor who went on to something bigger. (One of my favorites has Danny Masterson and Giovanni Ribisi as a couple of street toughs.) It's a testament to Junie Lowry-Johnson that she's the only casting director I…

Gosselaar and Schroeder were both really good, though. If nothing else, they held their own as characters who gave Franz and the writers opportunities to explore fascinating new dimensions of Sipowicz. (And really, post-Jimmy Smits, the show was mostly about finding new ways to challenge and examine Sipowicz.) The…

Man, I loved 'NYPD Blue.' I watched religiously right up through the series finale. I used to get a little bit choked up when I'd hear those pounding drumbeats at the end of the opening theme, just because I was so excited to rejoin my favorite TV people.. For years it was my unchallenged choice for best TV drama…

@avclub-1f5b519cde67ac0d0fcab419aa3048a4:disqus He's also a gay man raising several multi-ethnic adopted children. You may be onto something.

Can I request a potbot instead?

GodDAMNit, did I want to be the first one to make a Quintet joke!

My Realtor was a touring opera singer who owned a llama ranch in the Yucatan and spent his winters selling houses in Saint Paul. Couldn't have been a lovelier guy.

After Letterman had his bypass surgery and had to cut out caffeine, he used to run fake ads saying the preceding segment was "Brought to you by decaffeinated coffee. Decaffeinated coffee: It's useless brown water!"

"Alright. Listen up you clowns. I'm here, and I'm lookin'… for the Toronto Kid!"

Ryan O'Neal is well cast in that too. If there's one thing that guy can play, it's a skeevy creep.

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?

In my case, it was more that I saw the commercials that aired during The Simpsons.