Hill Street Blues

[Mr Chipps]

In this week's Ashes To Ashes there was a reference to Hill St Blues. Can anyone tell me when HSB was first aired on British TV? I know it started on NBC in the US in Jan 1981, other than that I have no idea.

[kempie]

Hill Street Blues was first aired by NBC in the US on 15th Jan 1981.

I was quite surprised to discover that ITV started broadcast of the show 1 week later - 22nd Jan 1981. I can only remember it being shown on Channel 4 after it had transferred from ITV in November of 1984.

[dot.hawkes]

I watched HSB from episode one, (where the 2 cops were gunned down as i recall) and it was a must watch show, years later i realised Betty Thomas and Mel Gibson were working together and I was not surprised, she was very talented.

[kempie]

...Actually my recollection must be faulty. I certainly associate HSB with Channel 4 but I also watched the programme before the theme tune entered the UK music charts, which it did around Christmas 1981.

[andy-hughes]

My memory is notoriously faulty, but I only recall the Channel 4 broadcasts - I'd say aroun '81.

It is re-running every day now on one of the freeview channels, my digibox is set to record, and I watch each evening while I have my tea. Wonderful.

[kempie]

andy seems to parallel my thought process but a big spanner in the works is the fact that Channel 4 didn't exist before 2nd November 1982.

[Postdog]

Don't know dates, but it did originally air on ITV. I recall watching episodes on Thames, and then later in the week, watching them again on Anglia, which I could just about get,

As in the US, the initial reaction was that it was a masterpeice of broadcasting BUT it took viewers time (some anyway, which is why it initially flopped) to get used to the change in format that we were so used to - that of a single story being contained in just the one episode, HSB's was unlike most other programmes in that you had to actually watch it rather than just have it as background.

It moved to Channel four, who re showed it from the start and showed all the subsequent series. It is actually on TV at the moment on More 4, though it is approaching the end of the run - on the other day was the episode where Joe Coffey was killed.

[masma]

Don't know when it was on but i loved it - wish we had more like it now. Chris Evans played the theme tune today and it all came back to me... Be careful out there - excelent!