In Musical Drama ‘Cop Rock’, Bochco Rolls With the Pitches

With the first question, Steven Bochco was asked about some negative early TV trade publication reviews about his new series and if he was going to make changes.

His “Cop Rock,” scheduled Wednesday nights at 10 on ABC, is a major curiosity of the fall season. It’s an odd coupling of deadly police drama mixed with singing, including heavy ballads and raucous comedy production numbers.

The curiosity, of course, is how long the series will last.

Confronting dubious local affiliate station executives and an openly skeptical press, Daniel Burke, president of Capital Cities/ABC, was fervent, almost zealous, in his support of Bochco and the show during an earlier press conference with TV reporters Saturday at the Century Plaza as part of their annual summer rounds of interviews of the autumn programs.

He paid Nobel-sized tribute to Bochco as “unbelievably gifted”: “If you’re going to fly your first mission in combat, there’s no better wingman than Steven Bochco.”

However, his praise of the show was a little cautious: “I’ve seen it four or five times, and I’ve liked it better each time,” he said. “And I confess that I had a little bit of trouble with parts of it the first time. And I think it’s going to take some getting used to, and it’s going to get every possible opportunity to find its audience and have people get used to it.”

Of course, Bochco, the co-creator and executive producer of the series, has made some of the hottest hits in Hollywood--including “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.”--and has a long-term deal with ABC.

Bochco said he wasn’t making any changes because the series will be well into scripting even before the public gets its first look at it.

But he acknowledged likely problems: “You know, any time you do a new show, particularly if it’s something that people aren’t used to seeing, there’s going to be a lot of resistance. What we’re hoping, obviously, is that in the course of time, they’ll get used to it and enjoy it.”

The show is the topic of speculation--and some cynicism--among the reporters. Before Bochco appeared, a scrawled note by one reporter was circulated table to table: “All questions and answers in this session,” it said, “will be sung. Feel free to insert production numbers where appropriate. Pass it on. . . . “

The producer said that singer-songwriter Randy Newman was “attached” to the series for the pilot episode, and that helped sell the idea to the network, but the show, which will include five songs per episode, is being written by a staff of composers. They’ll probably work in a mix of styles in addition to rock, he said, including rhythm and blues, gospel, country, hip-hop, rap and Latin.

Bochco, when asked about the cost, replied: “About a billion dollars.” He said the episodes would cost about a third more than the usual hour drama. Then aren’t his chances of making a profit slim to none?

“I absolutely have no idea, quite candidly,” he said.