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MTM Enterprises developed the series on behalf of NBC, appointing Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll as series writers. The writers were allowed considerable creative freedom, and created a series which brought together for the first time a number of emerging ideas in TV drama.

• Each episode features a number of intertwined storylines, some of which are resolved within the episode, with others developing over a number of episodes throughout a season.
• Much play is made of the conflicts between the work and private lives of the individuals. In the workplace there is also a strong focus on the struggle between doing "what was right" and "what worked" in situations.
• The camera is held close in, action cut rapidly between stories, and there is lots of use of overheard, or off-screen, dialogue, giving a "documentary" feel to the action.
• Rather than studio (floor) cameras, hand-held Arriflexes are used to add to the "documentary" feel.
• The show deals with "real-life" issues, and uses "real-life" language to a greater extent than had been seen before.
• Almost every episode began with a pre-credits sequence consisting of "roll call" at the beginning of the day shift. Many episodes are written to take place over the course of a single day, a concept later used in the NBC series L.A. Law.

Though filmed in Los Angeles (both on location and at CBS Studio Center in Studio City), the series is set in a generic location with a feel of a Northern urban center.

The distinctive theme tune was written by Mike Post and was popular enough to reach the top 10 on Billboard's Hot 100.

The program's focus on failure and those at the bottom of the social scale is pronounced, and very much in contrast to Bochco's later project L.A. Law. It has been described as Barney Miller out of doors — the focus on the bitter realities of 1980s urban living is revolutionary for its time. Later seasons are accused of becoming formulaic (a shift that some believe to have begun after the death from cancer of Michael Conrad midway through the fourth season, which led to the replacement of the beloved Sgt. Esterhaus by Sgt. Stan Jablonski, played by Robert Prosky) and the series that broke the established rules of television ultimately failed to break its own rules. Nonetheless it is a landmark piece of television programming, the influence of which is still seen in such series as NYPD Blue and ER. In fact the very concept of the modern 'ensemble' drama can probably be traced back to Hill Street Blues.

There is also a short-lived Dennis Franz spinoff called Beverly Hills Buntz, in which Franz' Det. Buntz character moves from the Hill to Los Angeles to become a private eye.

• The Hill Street Blues Fans website
• The Hill Street Blues Egroup

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