Alan Light · CC BY 2.0

A television writer-producer who rebuilt the police drama around overlapping storylines, unresolved subplots, and moral ambiguity rather than a case wrapped up by the hour. Hill Street Blues, which he developed, set the template for serialized network drama that shows from The Wire to ER would later follow; he went on to create L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, which pushed television's limits on language and content when it premiered in 1993.