美国国家公共电台 NPR Steven Bochco, Groundbreaking TV Producer, Dies at 74

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

This is what TV crime drama sounded like before "Hill Street Blues¹."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DRAGNET")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

KELLY: Shows like "Dragnet" followed a simple formula - a crime, a detective or a cop solves the crime, end of story. Then in 1981, a man named Steven Bochco rewrote that formula. "Hill Street Blues" showed us the inner lives of the cops and detectives, the mundane² activities of the squad³ room as cops prepared to go out and face the day's work.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HILL STREET BLUES")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) We have a 9-11. Armed robbery in progress. See surplus store, corner Peebles Drive (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) All right. That it. Let's roll. Hey, let's be careful out there.

KELLY: Over his career, Bochco was nominated for dozens of Emmys. He won 10. Bochco died yesterday of cancer. He was 74. To talk about the mark he's left, let's turn to another producer of TV drama, David Nevins. He produced "Friday Night Lights," "24." He's now CEO of Showtime. David Nevins, welcome.

DAVID NEVINS: Nice to meet you.

KELLY: Why was Steven Bochco such a big deal in TV history?

NEVINS: Steven was the first one to make the show about the cops themselves, you know, that clip that you played from "Dragnet" or "Kojak." The dramas were largely mystery driven, and the cops were the facilitators of the stories about catching⁴ criminals and putting them in jail and making sure that justice was done. And that was a lot less interesting to Bochco. He made the cops the story - the stories of their lives and the decisions that they had to make every day both in their personal lives and in their professional lives.

KELLY: And he also was changing the protagonist⁵ - didn't have to be a good guy, could be a bad guy, could be super complicated, which is more interesting.

NEVINS: Right - could be messy, could be dirty, could be conflicted. He proved with characters like Mick Belker that you could have a character that is just plain weird⁶, cops that were just plain weird. Mick Belker, who ate onion sandwiches, I thought was a revelation.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HILL STREET BLUES")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Put me down.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Not until you stop growling⁷.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Can't you see that I stopped growling?

KELLY: You know, I'm listening to you speak about these messy characters and thinking you were involved in the very early days of "Homeland," which has a very messy character at the heart of it.

NEVINS: The whole conversation that we had in the early days was how to make Carrie Mathison a more complicated, interesting, messed up character. I mean, that character is a direct descendant of the kind of characters that Bochco did really throughout his career. It wasn't just "Hill Street Blues." It's also "L.A. Law" and certainly "NYPD Blue."

KELLY: Another thing I want to ask you though is this. Steven Bochco also pushed boundaries in terms of what he was willing to show.

NEVINS: Yeah. Bochco was always really interested in pushing the limits. He pushed the limits in everything he did. He pushed the limits obviously in terms of storytelling. That's what we're talking about. But he also pushed the limits in terms of content. And he wanted to show the messy side of life. Partly, I think he had a sort of - my sense is he had a personality that liked to push the limits but also - but there was definitely a strong artistic⁸ point behind it. He wanted to be able to talk about the unmentionables. And obviously, that legacy⁹ is felt today in the best of cable dramas.

KELLY: That's David Nevins, the CEO of "Showtime" remembering fellow TV crime producer Steven Bochco. He died yesterday at 74.

1 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

2 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

3 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

4 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

5 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

6 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

7 growling   

n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼

参考例句：

• We heard thunder growling in the distance. 我们听见远处有隆隆雷声。
• The lay about the deck growling together in talk. 他们在甲板上到处游荡，聚集在一起发牢骚。

8 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

9 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。