Oftentimes, police department serial dramas are some of the biggest TV series year in and year out. Law & Order has been one of the most successful series in history, spanning decades and numerous spinoffs. Criminal Minds, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire, and The Shield are other examples of incredibly popular series that took audiences through the grit of what the day in the life of a cop is like. People love watching police shows because they take them inside cases that they're likely never to see in real life.

One of the more recent cop series that was a massive hit were the ones led by 's Harry Bosch. Bosch and Bosch: Legacy were big-time shows for Prime Video, showing the Los Angeles Police Department and Hollywood homicide departments as they tried to figure out tough cases weekly. Welliver has been a veteran of TV and film for years and Bosch is not the first police officer he's played. Far from it, actually. Welliver had one of the lead roles in a police series that was written by some of the most prolific showrunners of the 1990s. Yet, for some reason, never took off and was canceled after one season.

Brooklyn South was a show similar to NYPD Blue in that it focused on a New York police department. But rather than focusing on detectives like the multi-time Emmy Award winner did, it focused on the uniformed cops of the precinct. The precinct consisted of stars Welliver, Jon Tenney, Michael DeLuise, Dylan Walsh, James B. Sikking, Yancy Butler, Gary Basaraba, Klea Scott, Richard T. Jones, Adam Rodriguez, and Patrick McGaw.

The show was created by Stephen Bochco, who made hits like NYPD Blue, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues, and Doogie Howser, M.D. He was one of the most prolific showrunners of his era, winning 10 Emmy Awards. Milch co-created NYPD Blue with him and went on to create a number of shows as well.

He wrote on Hill Street Blues, Bay City Blues, Total Security and more Bochco shows and Finkelstein was in the writers' room on Murder One, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue. Clark was a former NYPD detective who was a technical consultant on NYPD Blue and a former Major in the U.S. Army. Needless to say, these men had police procedurals down and knew how to write them effectively. Yet, the experience couldn't help save the show.

The pilot episode of Brooklyn South dealt with a gunman going on a rampage outside the police station. The gunman is wounded in the apprehension and dies from his injuries in custody. The shooter's sister alleges that he was killed because he was Black, setting off a race relations argument. The rest of the pilot episode introduced the main characters, as Butler's boyfriend was shot and killed by the gunman, Walsh apprehended him, and Tanney tried to keep the precinct from attacking the man. Welliver's home life is shown as his strung-out wife provides him with a lot of stress.

As the show built up its first few episodes, it went deeper into the Internal Affairs investigation into the gunman's death and highlighted more episodes around race relations and sexual identity rhetoric, including Hasidic individuals being mugged and gay men being beaten. The show rarely showed an optimistic look at New York City or its characters, as each of them was going through something related to the job.

The episodes started to get thinner as the season went on, partly because there were just too many cop characters and also because Bochco took time away for personal reasons, according to his autobiography. Despite returning at the back end of the season to help write, it didn't help the fate of the series.

CBS aired Brooklyn South on Monday nights in the fall of 1997 and the winter and spring of 1998. Unfortunately, that meant it was up against Monday Night Football on ABC in the fall and Dateline: Monday on NBC during its entire run. It averaged 10.5 million viewers during its run. In today's landscape, those numbers would make it one of the most-watched series on television. But back then, it ranked 74th among all TV series airing at the time.

In the winter, Bochco and Milch reworked the series, adding John Finn's senior detective and focusing more on the personal lives of the emotional core of the cast, which included expanded stories for Welliver, Butler, DeLuise, and Rodriguez. At the time, Bochco and Milch were confident they had turned things around, and ratings picked up again. But the series was axed despite all of that, earning the ire of Bochco.

While Brooklyn South only lasted 22 episodes, it freed up everyone to pursue other projects. Milch went on to create Deadwood, a beloved series that ran for three seasons and a made-for-TV movie and was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmys. Milch cast Welliver in his series Big Apple as well as in Deadwood as Silas Adams. He then went on to a large role on Sons of Anarchy before Bosch.

Tenney went on to succeed on The Closer and Major Crimes. Walsh played the co-lead of Nip/Tuck. Jones starred in Judging Amy and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Rodriguez starred for years on CSI: Miami and is now on Criminal Minds. Bochco only had two more series that he created run for more than one season after Brooklyn South before his death in 2018.