Delvecchio was a good, solid show with a fine cast. It was on the very edge of being renewed for a second year, and one wonders what Judd Hirsch's career would have been like if his first hit had been a drama rather than a sitcom. Delvecchio was created by Steven Bochco several years before Hill Street Blues. Although it lacked the stylistic innovation of the later show, Delvecchio had equally interesting characters - and some of the actors moved from the one show to the other, most importantly Charles Haid and Michael Conrad. There were even more connections. As 1976 was pre-VCR for me, I made an audio tape of several episodes. Imagine my surprise when I saw a Hill Street episode some years later and found the exact same, line to line, dialogue in one of their plot arcs as in the Delvecchio episode "Bad Shoot." Apparently it was so good it had to be used again!
