Hill Street Station  "Hill Street Station" is the first episode of the first season of the American serial police drama "Hill Street Blues". "Hill Street Station" originally aired in the United States on NBC on Thursday January 15, 1981 at 10:00 PM Eastern time as part of a two-week five-episode limited-run pilot airing on Thursdays and Saturdays. The episode won numerous Primetime Emmy Awards (Directing, Writing, Sound Editing, and Cinematography), a Directors Guild of America Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and an Edgar Award as well as Emmy Award nominations for film editing, music composition, and art direction. The episode was directed by Robert Butler and written by Michael Kozoll and Steven Bochco. Unlike other high-profile debuts from the 1980–81 network television season that had two- and three-hour premieres, such as "Dynasty" and "Flamingo Road", this premiere episode debuted by itself as a one-hour offering. That season, even some holdovers, such as "B. J. and the Bear" and "Buck Rogers", had multi-hour season premieres. The main storyline involves a hostage situation that arose from an attempted armed robbery. The episode also introduces a host of unique characters. At the time of the debut, Robert McLean described the cast as a "cast of unknowns". The episode introduces the audience to a precinct station and the challenges that its police officers face in a setting of urban decay in a large anonymous city. Although anonymous, the city could easily represent the South Bronx in New York City, Watts in Los Angeles, or Central District in Miami. The episode also presents the precinct's captain by demonstrating the wide variety of forces that challenge him continually, including superiors, gangs, an ex-wife, defense counsel and strongminded men. In an article published in "The Miami News", Tom Jicha compares him to the title character in "Barney Miller", and "The New York Times" Tom Buckley compares the show to "Barney Miller" and "Kojak". The episode's storylines take five episodes to unravel cleanly. Hill Street precinct captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) deals with law enforcement issues while juggling personal crises. His precinct responds to a hostage situation at a local liquor store that becomes difficult when it evolves into a media circus, complicated by an aggressive SWAT team leader, Howard Hunter (James B. Sikking), who encounters nervous young gang members. Furillo attempts to negotiate with their gang leader.