Cop Rock

This is the longest leap of imagination TV viewers have ever been asked to make, and at first the chasm may look wider than the Grand Canyon. It's a magnificent optical illusion. Your chances of bridging the gap are actually quite good, but it may take more than one try. [26 Sep 1990, p.E1]

This is not the most seamless pilot of the season, or the most enjoyable. But nobody whets the appetite for more as well as Bochco. "Cop Rock" is the most exciting program of the fall season. [26 Sep 1990, p.47]

Even when the transition from music to drama seems abrupt, or the staging of a number a bit too prosaic, "Cop Rock" has the audaciousness and energy of a true original, plus moments of brilliance that are almost blinding. [26 Sep 1990, p.C1]

Overall, the pilot for "Cop Rock" has too many flaws to be called great television. But it is daring, exciting and innovative television -- with moments where music and drama meet to touch the heart in ways television all too rarely does.

This is as slick as prime-time gets, a clever amalgam of TV drama and Broadway musical. ... Still, it seems a shame that so much writing, acting and musical talent is being devoted to such tired and simplistic polemics. [26 Sep 1990]

The songs in the pilot weren't top-notch [Randy] Newman — if you heard them on one of his albums, you'd think he had lost his touch. And if a songwriter as gifted as Newman can't redeem Bochco's concept, how will any of the other, probably lesser, talents that Bochco will employ on future episodes fare any better? It's too bad, because without the music, Cop Rock is a solid cop show.

By the time the show ended, I disliked it a lot, but I kept an open mind. ... I watched it a second time. And a third time. I now believe I can praise Bochco and ABC for trying to do something different and, at the same time, say that "Cop Rock" is a bomb of major proportions. [17 Sep 1990, p.1D]