The better-known Police Story series ran from 1973 to 1977 on NBC. In 1988 four made-for-television movies based on the original’s script aired on ABC. Los Angeles police officer and writer Joseph Wambaugh created the series after his first two police novels, The Blue Knight and The New Centurions, made the best-seller lists. (The Blue Knight was also adapted into a series for CBS.)

Airing during a network television era rife with crime dramas, Police Story distinguished itself from other programs in the genre through its anthology format and emphasis on a more realistic depiction of police officers. Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Police Story focused on officers from various divisions of the Los Angeles Police Department. While the series had its share of car chases and psycho killers, Wambaugh and series producer David Gerber primarily concentrated on making police officers more three-dimensional and human. The series presented the job of police officer as challenging, dangerous, and at times mundane. Undercover detectives spent their lives on stakeouts; rookie cops faced tough street educations; SWAT sharpshooters hit innocent bystanders. Problems such as corruption and racism on the police force and tensions between ethnic communities were frequently explored. The personal lives of the characters were also examined, most often in the context of the pressures police work put on all members of the cop’s family.

Although the visual and aural style of Police Story episodes were on the whole indistinguishable from other crime dramas of the era, the series introduced and concluded episodes with simple recurring motifs that asserted the series’ verisimilitude. Each episode opened with the brief Police Story title and then leapt into its story. Episodes ended with a blurry freeze frame of the last bit of action. The audio of the scene fell silent and was replaced by the chillingly efficient voice and static of police dispatchers making a radio call, “Eleven-Mary-six, call the station. Thirteen-zero-five, John-Frank-William, eight-nine-nine.”

The result of these narrative and aesthetic conventions was an at times disturbing picture of police officers operating on the edge of society and their own personal sanity. While episodes consistently started stronger than they finished, the anthology format and the ever-present influence of documentary film conventions helped Police Story to stand out from more familiar cops-and-robbers fare. These stylistic factors suggest that the series was, in various ways, the predecessor of later police programs such as Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, and Homicide: Life on the Street. The series received wide critical praise and Emmy nominations for Outstanding Dramatic Series every year during its 1970s run.

Although most episodes in Police Story were unrelated, a few actors reprised their characters across several episodes. Don Meredith and Tony LoBianco appeared as partners or separately in six episodes from 1973 to 1975. Two Police Story episodes also served as spin-offs for the police dramas Police Woman and Joe Forrester. Gerber produced these series as well.