Brooklyn South | |
---|---|
Genre | Police drama |
Created by |
Steven Bochco Bill Clark William M. Finkelstein David Milch |
Starring |
Jon Tenney Michael DeLuise Gary Basaraba James B. Sikking Yancy Butler Titus Welliver Klea Scott Patrick McGaw Richard T. Jones Adam Rodriguez Dylan Walsh |
Composer(s) | Mike Post |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 22 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Steven Bochco Michael S. Chernuchin William Finkelstein David Milch Michael Watkins |
Producer(s) | Mark Tinker |
Location(s) |
Brooklyn, New York City, New York (exteriors only) Los Angeles, California (interiors) |
Running time | 60 minutes (excluding commercials) |
Production company(s) | Steven Bochco Productions CBS Productions |
Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | September 22, 1997 | – April 27, 1998
Chronology | |
Related shows | NYPD Blue |
Brooklyn South is an American ensemble police drama series that aired on CBS for one season during the 1997–98 television season. The series was co-created by Steven Bochco, Bill Clark, David Milch and William M. Finkelstein.
The series attempted to create a setting of a gritty, realistic police station similar to that of NYPD Blue (and was set in the same universe as NYPD Blue), but differed by focusing on the uniformed police officers rather than the detectives. The pilot of Brooklyn South was noted as the first TV-MA rated episode on broadcast television (or rather, TV-M as the rating was displayed during the time), making it the first time a show on CBS would receive a TV-MA rating.
The focus for Brooklyn South was the 74th Precinct in southern Brooklyn, New York City. Francis "Frank" Donovan (Jon Tenney) was the patrol sergeant who presided every day over the morning shift assignments he gave to the uniformed officers. Donovan was an informant for the hated Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), and secretly reported to Lt. Stan Jonas (James B. Sikking), who, early in the series, transferred from being an IAB officer to the precinct captain after the officious Captain Lou Zerola (Bradford English) transferred to precinct maintenance. It was later revealed in the season that Donovan became an undercover informant 15 years earlier for IAB to protect his father, a retired cop living in Florida, from indictment for corruption.
In the pilot episode, a psychotic gunman went on a shooting rampage outside the police station, killing a number of policemen and innocent bystanders. He was wounded in the shootout and brought back into the station where he died from his gunshot wounds. It was later revealed that Ann-Marie Kersey (Yancy Butler), a policewoman whose boyfriend was one of the victims of the shooting spree, slipped into the room where the wounded madman was being held and kicked him several times in his chest which caused his death. Because the shooter was black and all of his victims were white, the killer's family pressured the city to launch an Internal Affairs investigation. Eventually, everyone was exonerated for the suspect's death, and Kersey completely got away with it, though her guilt over murdering a critically wounded criminal would haunt her off-and-on for the duration of the series. Kersey then had a romantic affair with Donovan, but it did not last. Kersey and Donovan later got back together. Later in the series, Kersey was designated to detective.