In the US, “NYPD Blue” had an absolutely amazing run. Started in 1993, the police series enjoyed great popularity until 2005 with twelve seasons and a total of 261 episodes. The stories surrounding the unit of a fictional police station in the New York borough of Manhattan were popular abroad because of their popularity authentic depiction of everyday life as a police officer and their harsh tone, which is unusual for conventional network television It was enthusiastically celebrated – which was also reflected in its influence on later representatives of the genre and in an award with 20 Emmys and four Golden Globes.
However, the spark never really spread to Germany, where the series was shown on television under the title “New York Cops – NYPD Blue”, so that the TV broadcast was canceled several times and at one point even completely. A few years later, however, the cult series was dug up again by Disney to further expand the portfolio of its own streaming service Disney + (both the original television channel ABC and the production company 20th Television are now part of Disney).
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After the seasons already known in this country found their way to Disney + in 2022, there is now a real premiere that has been waiting for more than 20 years. As of today, January 25, 2023, the already produced in 2001 and 2002 ninth season of “NYPD Blue” is accessible via Disney+ – for the first time in Germany and can be seen in a German dubbed version (after at least part of Season 8 had previously been shown in Austria).
“NYPD” in Germany
Disney+ thus offers an ideal opportunity to catch up on a piece of television history that has been completely denied to us in this country until now. ProSieben was still quite optimistic in the 1990s because of the huge American success of the series and even broadcast the first three seasons on prime time between 1994 and 1997 – with varying and rapidly declining success, so that season 4 then switched to the night program and the local free TV broadcast was then paused for a long time for the first time.
It wasn’t until 2006 that Sat.1 dared to begin its fifth season, but soon canceled the premiere halfway through after another ratings crash. This finally ended the German free TV career of detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) and his team. And after at least two more seasons ran on pay TV at Premiere, there was a break from broadcasting in Germany once and for all – until Disney+’s current “NYPD Blue” offensive, in which we assume that the remaining three seasons will soon celebrate their belated German premiere.