Sing It Again, Klinghoffer: Andrew Billen Thinks Television Should Be Brave and Show More Opera. (Television)

Beginning of article

I once asked the co-creator of NYPD Blue, Steven Bochco, why his series Cop Rock lasted only six episodes. "Embarrassment," he replied. "People found it too damn embarrassing to watch." The problem was that four times in each programme his policemen would break into song.

I am sure he was right, yet there is nothing intrinsically impossible about having characters singing, even in so apparently naturalistic a medium as television. After all, in real life car chases aren't orchestrated, yet we accept the convention of incidental music. In the heyday of the Hollywood musical, Judy Garland would break into song on trains. Singing worked for Dennis Potter in Pennies from Heaven. Sometimes, television is so histrionic that it seems to strain towards the condition of music, as the …