Frank Serpico is a real person. He was an honest cop on the NYPD, blowing the whistle on his Band of Brothers in Blue. A book about him was written by reporter Peter Maas in 1973 and that was quickly adapted into a screenplay by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler, directed by Sidney Lumet.
Then someone got the idea to turn that film into a series. Of course, in the theatrical version, the detective was played by Al Pacino. Here, the role of Frank Serpico was played by David Birney.
We've all heard about "The Thin Blue Line," that is, the defense that police use to protect themselves and their own from any kind of prosecution when they have done something wrong. It's impossible to know just how much bad cops have gotten away with, over time, because we can't go back and investigate the facts of many cases, as evidence might have been covered up or destroyed, fellow officers may have lied under oath to protect their colleagues or even in this era, may have deleted bodycam footage or purposely turned off their monitors, claiming that they malfunctioned.
Frank Serpico was a man who believed that justice was for all, not just those who aren't wearing a shield, and felt that cops doing the wrong thing were both harming society with their activities and creating a negative response to the police by citizens at large. That's why he went on a crusade to stop it.
The film features the story of NYPD taking bribes - great extra money under the table for officers, which allowed other criminals to get off lightly or not charged at all. When Serpico didn't play along with the game, his fellow officers started to pressure him to toe the line.
Obviously, audiences wanted to see a good cop succeed, but when it came to making this series, the concept of cops continually doing wrong was problematic, especially for a real-life Police Department that was already seen as difficult, just generally. So, changes needed to be made for this weekly procedural, rather than the one ongoing case depicted in the motion picture.
Mr. Birney cooled down the intensity of Pacino's movie performance (he had to because nobody could keep up that level of outrage and anger over multiple episodes)!
New York played a part because with a city this size and with so much activity, armored cars, ships and trains and trucks delivering precious goods to various points around the city and so many attempting to get an angle on bigger money, there were potentially endless cases to cover.
Frank Serpico retired from the NYPD with their highest award: The Medal of Honor. That was in 1972. The book and film bearing his name came out in 1973 and this show followed soon after. Mr. Serpico celebrated his 88th birthday in April 2024 and is still crusading for truth and justice, as the NYPD refused to release the facts surrounding a shooting that nearly took his own life while he was still on the force. He didn't get the intel about that incident until the end of 2023 when, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, those files were finally open. Serpico was a real life Superman! He took a bullet and still survived to get the crooks!
Unfortunately, this series reduced his character to standard police TV plotlines, But, of course, most episodes here didn't feature bad cops, and just had Serpico focusing on going undercover as a part of some random criminal's plan to steal, distribute controlled substances or murder someone they wanted out of the way. That made some sense, as the PR team for the NYPD likely refused to see stories about rogue officers every week, especially since we're talking about an actual, factual, Police Department in a place that people know!
The tradeoff was we didn't have the same intensity or forward momentum of the film and, let's be honest, David Birney was no Al Pacino, who received an Academy Award nomination for Bast Actor as part of his performance.
