One thing that kind of sort of irks me is that HSB tends to be discounted when it comes to comparisons with the modern great TV shows. Is HSB as good as, say, The Wire or Mad Men? No, but it compares very favorably to shows like Lost or The Shield. I know the inclination is to often say "Pre-Sopranos, dramas were just…

I agree that Lloyd was the heart of the show (isn't it astonishing that that dude is STILL alive? His imminent death was the plot point of a TV show from nearly 35 years ago!!) but I don't think acknowledging that would take away from either Flanders or Daniels' performances. To wit, Conrad was the heart of HSB while…

One of the great TV reveals was when they finally revealed how much money Joyce Davenport had. It was this thing the entire run, the fact that she was rich because she had inherited some money so she never really HAD to work. She and Furillo were MARRIED and it still never came up. So when she finally told him, he…

Yeah, Post is really kind of a genius with matching songs to shows.

Another question - of the great 1980s lead dramatic actors, who was your favorite?

Question for the crowd - do you think Travanti is a good actor or was the character of Furillo just perfectly written for his straight-ahead style of acting?

Absolutely agreed. I think the pilot has one of those major "pay attention, this is not your typical show" signs early on where they make it seem like the smooth-talking J.D. and the gorgeous Joyce Davenport are going to be "the" couple while it was just misdirection and she was actually with the straight-laced…

A neat thing I enjoyed about HSB is how while it is true that Milch and Lewis cut the cast down dramatically during their last two seasons, the way that they did it was very respectful to the characters being cut, with most of them popping up along the way to have their plots resolved. Not only that, when the old…

While I wouldn't put it up there with the all-time great HSB episodes because it doesn't actually FEEL like an HSB episode, David Mamet's episode in the final season, "A Wasted Weekend," is still an excellent piece of television. The most interesting thing about it is that he brought back an obscure character from…

As to the Furillo/Davenport relationship, goddamn was that a sexy couple! I couldn't believe just how sex-driven the series was for the mid-80s. I think people mistake just how much 10 pm shows were getting away with back then.

One of the things that really irked me about HSB is how the series ended as a backdoor pilot for Beverly Hills Buntz, a truly wretched spin-off. Milch's disinterest in Furillo kept Furillo from even having much of a send-off in the series finale.

As for the decline, I, too, think that the last two seasons were excellent. They just were a different animal than the first four seasons. However, I think the show had slipped a little bit in season 5 so I was on board with Milch's dramatic changes when he took over. The show got much darker and Milch clearly found…

It really is amazing just how well the show holds up. I binge-watched it a few years back when it showed up on one of those random cable channels (they had HSB back-to-back with St. Elsewhere for a long while). While yes, obviously some of the cultural references are extremely dated, it is shocking at just how…

I wonder if Craig Ferguson's announcement that he's leaving the Late Late Show will change her plans at all.

Hell, he didn't even win that dating game show he was on in the 1990s!

Great eye, Rachel. She likely was Stephanie, just using an alias (all to hide her secret identity as Black Canary, of course).

"Hey Mom, this safehouse has three TVs!"

Great point. Lou didn't seem to have a ton of leverage and Duck got him a hell of a deal.

One thing I really could have done without was having the partners discussing out loud all of the various options that they obviously must have considered months ago, all for the sake of viewers not smart enough to know what's going on. "We could fire him." "No, we can't fire him, we'd have to buy him out. That would…

While I agree, that is what I mean by him reading the room. In the past, he could jab at her because he knew it was fine. He wouldn't do stuff he didn't think he could get away with. And he was pretty much always correct with what he could get away with. Until he completely misread the Hershey situation. Now he is…