N.Y.P.D. Blue.

About the best entertainment to be had from television nowadays is hearing producers and actors try to palm off their various brands of vulgarity verite as serious stuff, "daring" and "controversial" in its cultural implications.

The big talk now centers on N.Y.P.D. Blue, premiering September 21, in which ABC has dared to take on an R rating. This is necessary, explains producer Steven Bochco, because with so much slash and skin on the cable stations the networks must produce shows "a little more reflective of our society.... I'm not saying that language and nudity are a substitute for substance," he reflects. "I am saying that, as an artist with a palette, those colors, judiciously used, can add greatly to the finished product."

Hearing this, you might take Mr. Bochco for a struggling artist pleading the subtle realism of his work - instead of a millionaire TV executive serving up yet another cop drama, whose most novel artistic stroke is an exposed behind. This "unique blend of realism and smoldering situations," as ABC describes it, is meant - inevitably - to "shock" us, to force us to face the "realities" in which we live. And so it does, as viewers confront head on the reality of Hollywood's moral vision.

In Mr. Bochco's case this is a little surprising because, although his last major contribution to Western civilization was Doogie Howser, MD, he was also the creator of the thoughtful Hill Street Blues. The latter, particularly at the beginning of its six-year run, actually did approach reality. There were frustrated police officers watching career criminals strut free from court; snippy lawyeresses lecturing the chief on constitutional liberties; and in one episode the moral awakening of a public defender after her friend was raped by a victim of society released on some technicality. The whole atmosphere of the show, starting with the somber theme music, bore some resemblance to what police work must really be like in an ill-governed, crime-infested city.

With N.Y.P.D. Blue, we're in triter terrain: hard-bitten detectives contending with greasy, raspy-voiced Mob kingpins; anguished friction between police partners, who deep down have a soft spot for each other; implausibly fetching lady cops; passionate intraprecinct affairs; and marriages strained by the demands of a cop's lonely job. These, and the "smoldering" sex scenes, are the daring new colors in which Mr. Bochco executes his vision. Even the old black-and-white version of N.Y.P.D. with Jack Warden was in its unpretentious way more true to life. Nor does the camera technique - jumping about awkwardly, to give the feel of an on-the-scene hand cam - quite do the trick; if anything, this affectation only distracts us from the rather hard work of discerning a believable story line.

The partners on whom the drama centers are Detectives John Kelly and Andy Sipowicz - overplayed by David Caruso and Dennis Franz, both of the Hill Street cast. Sipowicz is on the edge. His divorce papers just came through, he's been drinking too much, the routine is wearing on him, and he just beat up a fat guy in the Mob who is now gunning for him. A further sign of his deterioration comes in the opening scene, in a confrontation with a female attorney who uses the phrase "ipso facto." "Hey," he replies, grabbing his crotch, "ipso facto this, you ..." We are plainly in the presence of "controversy."

In his despair Sipowicz heads down to the nearest bar, where he meets a prostitute. The next scene, their tryst, is interrupted when suddenly Fatso, the humiliated mobster, enters from the bathroom. It's a set-up! Prostitute flees, apologizing for her betrayal; mobster shoots Sipowicz.

The balance of the show follows Detective Kelly as he takes on the Mob in search of the guy who shot his buddy, while Sipowicz struggles for his life in a hospital. Perhaps it's Kelly's zeal for justice that briefly rekindles the affections of his estranged wife, Laura (Sherry Springfield, the only one here who conveys any kind of emotional nuance), another torn, career-minded lawyeress whom he beds down one last time before their separation is official. Poor Laura, though, shows up at his apartment the next day to commiserate, only to find him abed with patrolwoman Janice Licalsi - who, we discover at the end, is in the pay of the Mob. Kelly, as the episode ends with this suspenseful twist, doesn't know it yet, so that in episode two we may eagerly await yet another bloody bedroom set-up.

To Janice - the third party in this triangle, played by Amy Brenneman - falls the opportunity to lead us past a cultural milestone: that moment when her finely cleft fanny debuts on the small screen, studied from various angles for a full 15 seconds. We must remember her and Mr. Bochco 10 or 15 years from now when such scenes are commonplace, when we are as advanced as the Dutch, French, and Italians, and every soap commercial stars a naked babe.

Meanwhile, do not get too attached to Amy, who one suspects will soon have to showcase her gift elsewhere. The one hard reality that TV executives are not prepared to confront is that the American public by and large still prefers the wholesome to the salacious, which is why ratings are down over at the cable channels that ABC now seeks to emulate. To fault the network for pandering is to give them too much credit. If anything they are perverse altruists, delivering not what the public wants but what we need if America is to match Hollywood's honesty.

And of course, controversy distracts. It's much easier to defend oneself against charges of being "daring" or "shocking" than of simply being routine and mediocre.

Mr. Scully is a former NR associate literary editor and speechwriter for Vice President Quayle.