NYPD Blue
=== Season 1 ===
John Kelly and Andy Sipowicz are detectives in the 15th squad. Sipowicz is the elder partner but is an alcoholic who drinks on the job as well as off-duty, and his behavior causes doubt that the partnership will last much longer. Kelly has a genuine affection for his partner but becomes increasingly exasperated by Sipowicz's behavior. In addition to his alcoholism, Sipowicz is a deeply negative, misogynist, homophobic bigot. In the pilot, Sipowicz is shot by a suspect he had attacked and humiliated earlier. This leads to his decision to sober up and save his job. While Sipowicz is recuperating, the squad's lieutenant, Arthur Fancy, teams Kelly with a young cop from Anti-Crime, James Martinez.
Kelly's personal life is as frenetic as his professional life. He is reluctantly going through a divorce from his wife, Laura, and is embarking on an affair with a uniformed cop, Janice Licalsi. To complicate matters further, Licalsi's police officer father is on the payroll of mob boss Angelo Marino. Licalsi, in an attempt to protect her father, has been ordered to do a "hit" on Kelly. Instead, Licalsi murders Marino, and the repercussions come back to haunt both her and Kelly.
Sipowicz, meanwhile, sobers up and begins a relationship with ADA Sylvia Costas. The other detective in the squad, Greg Medavoy, a married man, embarks on an affair with the squad's new administrative aide, Donna Abandando.
=== Season 2 ===
Licalsi is found guilty of the manslaughter of Marino and his driver, and is given a two-year sentence. Because of Kelly's involvement with Licalsi, and the widely held belief that he withheld evidence that could have given her a longer sentence, he is transferred out of the 15th and chooses to leave the department altogether. He is replaced by Bobby Simone, a widower whose previous job was that of driver for the Police Commissioner. This does not sit well with Sipowicz, but after learning that Simone took the assignment in order to be present for his wife, who was suffering from cancer, Sipowicz learns to accept his new partner and eventually builds a strong friendship with him. When Sipowicz's relationship with Sylvia leads to marriage, he asks Simone to be his best man.
After an affair with a journalist whom he suspects has used information that he disclosed to her after an intimate moment to boost her career, Simone begins a relationship with another new member of the squad, Diane Russell. Sipowicz, as a recovering alcoholic, recognizes from Russell's behavior that she also has a drinking problem. After much prompting, she begins attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). In another storyline, due to his low self-esteem and disbelief that a woman like Donna could love him, Medavoy's relationship with her breaks down, due in no small part to Donna's visiting sister.
=== Season 3 ===
At the beginning of the season Sylvia becomes pregnant with Andy's child. A baby boy, Theo, is born towards the end of the season. This is contrasted with the fate that awaits Sipowicz's older son, Andy Jr., who announces that he plans to join the police force in nearby Hackensack, New Jersey after being discharged from the Air Force due to an injury. Sipowicz is finally bonding with his long-estranged son when Andy Jr. is gunned down trying to help people in a bar holdup. This causes the elder Sipowicz to fall off the wagon. Simone kills Andy Jr.'s murderers in an act of self-defense while attempting to arrest them.
Bobby and Diane, who had placed their relationship on hold while she attended AA, resume seeing each other. Diane begins drinking again when her abusive father beats her mother. Her father is eventually killed, and her mother becomes the prime suspect.
James Martinez and new detective Adrienne Lesniak begin an affair, but Lesniak later breaks it off and tells Medavoy (Martinez's partner and the squad gossip) that she is gay, because her last relationship with a fellow cop ended disastrously. After James is shot, recovers, and returns to work, and he and Lesniak get to know each other, she admits that the story she told Medavoy was a lie. Martinez later breaks up with her due to her controlling and unpleasant behavior, and Lesniak eventually leaves the squad. Medavoy leaves his wife, recognizing that she is holding him back, but it is too late to save his relationship with Donna, who leaves to take a job with Apple in California.
=== Seasons 4–5 ===
During the next two seasons, there are a few minor cast changes: Donna is replaced by several PAA's, most notably by Gina Colon (played by Lourdes Benedicto), who eventually marries Martinez and is written out; and Det. Jill Kirkendall (played by Andrea Thompson) is partnered with Russell. Sipowicz's battle with prostate cancer and the up-and-down Simone/Russell relationship, which includes Russell's revelation that she had been sexually abused by her father, are prominent storylines. Also during this time, Franz won four Emmy Awards, and both Delaney and Clapp each won an Emmy for supporting roles.
=== Seasons 6–8 ===
Season 6 is a major turning point for the series, as Smits decided not to renew his contract and left the show. In episode 5, "Heart and Souls", just episodes after marrying Russell, Simone dies due to an enlarged heart and a subsequent infection caused by complications from a heart transplant. Smits was replaced by Rick Schroder, as Det. Danny Sorenson.
Two additional critical incidents occur during Season 6: the heroin overdose death of PAA Dolores Mayo (played by Lola Glaudini), and the death of Costas, who is accidentally gunned down by Mayo's distraught father at the courthouse trial of the suspect accused in Mayo's death. Costas's final words to Sipowicz, ("Take care of the baby.") lead to his initial withdrawal from the squad. Yet, his keen perceptiveness allows him to gain a confession from the accused suspect, who tried to buy his way out of trouble. Furthermore, Sipowicz reaches a level of understanding with PAA John Irvin (portrayed by Bill Brochtrup), whose homosexuality had been a stumbling block for Sipowicz in their interactions to that point.
The next two seasons see the continuation of Sipowicz's relationship with Sorenson (in whom Sipowicz sees a resemblance to his late son), along with more changes in the squad. Departing during this time were Kirkendall (due to her unknowing involvement in her ex-husband's dirty dealings), Martinez (following his Sergeant promotion), Fancy as squad leader (through a promotion to Captain), and Russell (for a leave of absence to grieve the loss of Simone). Arriving to replace them are: Det. Baldwin Jones (played by Henry Simmons), Det. Connie McDowell (played by Charlotte Ross), and Lt. Tony Rodriguez (played by Esai Morales). Also arriving in Season 8 was new full-time ADA Valerie Haywood (played by Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon).
At the end of Season 8, Sorenson is approached by the owners of a strip club to work for them providing information. Still reeling from Russell's abruptly ending their brief affair, he accepts the offer. After reporting to Lt. Rodriguez, Sorenson goes undercover but then turns up missing, after a stripper he was seeing turns up dead in his apartment (though not by his doing). The Sorenson character was written out at the start of Season 9, at Schroder's request; he wanted to spend more time with his family in Montana.
=== Seasons 9–12 ===
The fourth and final phase of the show took place over the final four seasons. In addition to the "Sorenson missing" storyline, Season 9 initially tied-in with the September 11 terrorist attacks. A suspect trades immunity for a robbery and shooting in exchange for information on a buried rug in Brooklyn that turns out to include Sorenson's dead body. Filling the void as partner for Sipowicz is newly promoted Det. John Clark, Jr., played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. As with Simone and Sorenson, there is initial tension between Clark and Sipowicz, largely due to an old feud from years earlier involving Sipowicz and Clark's father, John Clark, Sr. (played in guest spots by Joe Spano). Season 9 also sees the introduction of Det. Rita Ortiz (played by Jacqueline Obradors). Sipowicz is awarded promotion to Detective First Grade for the same arrest (related to solving Sorenson's murder) that results in Clark, Jr. receiving his detective's shield; though Sipowicz had been recommended for First Grade at the same time as Simone for their work on a high-profile case several years earlier, the promotion had been withheld from Sipowicz because of negative incidents earlier in his career.
The remaining four years saw a continuing focus on Sipowicz as the main character, as had been the case since Simone's death. Another unlikely romance developed between Sipowicz and Connie McDowell. This came about due to her ability to stand up to Sipowicz's gruffness, and her tender relationship with Theo (played by Austin Majors). They eventually married, and after adopting McDowell's sister's baby daughter (following the sister's murder by her husband, Connie's brother-in-law), and had a child of their own, as well. The McDowell character would eventually become an off-screen character in the second half of the eleventh season and throughout the final season due to issues between Ross and show executives. Other departures and arrivals that occurred during this time: Rodriguez would be written out halfway through the eleventh season following a dispute with an IAB captain who shot him in a drunken rage; replacing him initially as head of the squad was Sgt. Eddie Gibson, played by former actual NYPD officer John F. O'Donohue, who had previously served in the squad both on night watch and briefly on the "day tour"; Haywood, after failing to convict Rodriguez's shooter, would appear in fewer episodes and then leave at the end of the eleventh season; Gibson would be replaced at the start of Season 12 by Lt. Thomas Bale, played by Currie Graham; and replacing McDowell was Det. Laura Murphy, played by Bonnie Somerville. The final few episodes involve the impending retirement of Det. Medavoy, and Sipowicz's promotion to Sergeant, and later assumption of command over the 15th.
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