The Real Reason These '90s Cop Shows Were Canceled

The 1990s was a point of convergence for television. Still dominated by a small handful of broadcast TV networks, the programming remained traditional, with familiar and formulaic formats like police procedurals — cop dramas, detective shows — resonating with viewers. But as the decade wore on, and cable TV rose up to compete with the networks, television got a bit racier, particularly police shows. Before long, this quaint style of program grew gritty and weighty, with more violence, profanity, complex characters, and shocking crimes added to the mix to add a realistic vibe. 

Revamped and renewed takes on the detective show laid the groundwork for the innovative "peak TV" cop shows of the 21st century, such as Justified, True Detective, and The Shield, but the '90s dramas remain important and classic TV shows in their own right. But all things must come to an end, and even the most successful and popular police dramas got pulled off the air like a "perp" off the street. Here are some of the '90s most prominent cop shows ... and why their runs were arrested.

Halfway through the 1995-96 TV season, Don Johnson returned to television in a way that suited the actor quite nicely. The star of the immensely popular Miami Vice headlined Nash Bridges, a Friday-night show about a San Francisco detective (and his partner, portrayed by Cheech Marin). Nash Bridges was a breezy, lightly comic procedural that found the title character investigating and solving crimes and — like Miami Vice's Sonny Crockett — cruising around in a cool car (a 1971 Plymouth Barracuda) and flirting heavily with most any woman he encountered.

Nash Bridges proved a moderate hit for CBS. Despite airing on the traditionally little-watched Friday nights, it got as high as #42 in the annual ratings, and the network kept renewing it year after year. But six was enough for all involved parties. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, by 2001, NBC's Law and Order: Special Victims Unit was routinely trouncing Nash Bridges on Fridays, but CBS was still considering ordering up a seventh season. Producer Paramount, however, wasn't interested, not wanting to spend the $2 million per episode it cost to make Nash Bridges. That may all have been moot, though, as Johnson was ready for something else. "Doing a TV series five days a week for as long as he did is an exhausting task," Johnson's agent, Elliot Mintz, said. "Don was ready to move on."

In the early 1990s, Fox was the newest and edgiest of the "big four" broadcast networks, and it was also one of the few to program content aimed at and starring people of color. Fox's Thursday night lineup in the 1994-95 season included Martin and Living Single, sitcoms with predominantly African-American casts, and New York Undercover, a police drama from Law and Order creator Dick Wolf about Puerto Rican detective Eddie Torres (Michael DeLorenzo) and his African-American partner, J.C. Williams (Malik Yoba), as they investigate gang-related and violent crimes in New York's Fourth Precinct. 

Despite critical acclaim for its new approach to the police procedural format — including a more diverse cast of characters, use of popular music, and a focus on inner city social issues — New York Undercover's overall viewership figures were low but consistent. During its first three seasons, it ranked right around 100th place. That was due in large part to the also consistent but far more successful competition. New York Undercover ran on Thursday nights, opposite NBC's historically popular "Must See TV" lineup, lead by juggernaut Seinfeld. A fourth, truncated season of New York Undercover aired sporadically between January 1998 and February 1999, and unsurprisingly, the elusive series didn't fare well in the ratings, and Fox quietly retired it.

Homicide: Life on the Street is probably the bleakest police drama to ever air on television. As for its origin, David Simon, a reporter who would go on to bring the equally sad and hopeless The Wire to HBO, wrote a book entitled Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. This would serve as the basis for the 1993-1999 NBC series about a Baltimore police precinct staffed by flawed individuals who always felt the crushing mental and spiritual consequences of their sometimes futile investigations .

Apart from a brief pop when it hit the Nielsen Top 30 in its second season, Homicide was always more of a favorite with critics than audiences. It generally finished in the 60s or 70s of Nielsen's annual rankings while simultaneously earning fawning praise from TV critics and notices at the Emmy Awards, winning trophies for directing, writing, and star Andre Braugher. But nevertheless, NBC respectfully canceled the series in May 1999. 

Executive producer Tom Fontana told The New York Times that NBC had four hour-long shows in contention for the fall of 1999, and producing any one of those would cost $200,000 per episode less than it would to make another season of Homicide, a savings of about $4.4 million. Homicide already had banked 122 episodes, enough to sell into the syndication market, and NBC executives didn't think another two dozen episodes or so would increase the value of the rerun package, so it opted to cancel the series. In other words, as Fontana explained, "It came down to economics."

The X-Files was one of the most popular and influential shows of the 1990s. A unique combination of detective show and science fiction saga, it showed how ambitious and rewarding a TV series could be if it took its time. Over its eight years on the air, the show followed two FBI agents — true believer Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and perpetual skeptic Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) — as they unraveled and got wrapped up in a far-reaching government conspiracy involving the paranormal activity (aliens, monsters, weird science, and unexplained phenomena) they were charged with investigating. The X-Files mixed horror, sci-fi, and drama, and it tapped into the culture of conspiracy theory on the way to stellar ratings for Fox and 16 Emmy Award wins.

After seven seasons, Duchovny left The X-Files in pursuit of bigger and better things while also embroiled in a lawsuit with Fox, claiming he was stiffed on profits generated by the show. By the time season nine of The X-Files began, it was a very different series. Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish had joined the cast as Special Agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes, accounting for the absence of Duchovny. Also absent? Huge audiences. The X-Files sunk to #67 in the ratings, and Fox closed it down in 2002. However, the show didn't go away for good. Fox aired two X-Files miniseries — starring Duchovny — in 2016 and 2018.

When it debuted on ABC in 1993, NYPD Blue was revolutionary. Hotly anticipated for its grit and realism — it was co-created by Steven Bochco, who'd previously devised the acclaimed 1980s police drama Hill Street Blues — the show offered a brutally frank depiction of life on the other side of the thin blue line in New York City. The show kept ABC censors on notice with its use of adult language, depictions of violence, and frequent partial nudity. 

Heading up the large ensemble cast of NYPD Blue was Dennis Franz – a veteran of Hill Street Blues and literally dozens of other TV cop shows — as Detective Andy Sipowicz, an angry alcoholic with a tendency to destroy his personal relationships. Franz, as the slowly evolving Sipowicz, was a steady presence on NYPD Blue, which endured numerous cast changes. Sipowicz had four partners on the force over the run of the show — John Kelly (David Caruso), Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smith), Danny Sorenson (Ricky Schroder), and John Clark (Mark-Paul Gosselaar).

Portraying the main character on a TV show for so long— particularly one as dramatically heavy and work-intensive as NYPD Blue – took its toll on Franz. "At one point, in about the ninth season, I told Steven Bochco that if we made it to season 12, that's a good number," Franz told the New York Post. Lo and behold, NYPD Blue made it to its twelfth and ultimately final season in 2005, at which point, Franz retired from acting.