Video: Sue, Sue! Bang, Bang!

If television cops of the 1980s have changed from those of the '70s, the credit must go largely to two men. One of them, Steven Bochco, was the co- creator (with Michael Kozoll) of Hill Street Blues, the police drama that brought the genre a gritty new look, bustling narratives and a recognition that police officers are adults, not cartoon heroes. The other, Michael Mann, gave the formula another new twist a few seasons later with Miami Vice, which used flashy visuals and a thumping rock sound track to transform familiar cops-and-robbers tales into moody morality plays.

Crusading professionals are out in force on TV screens again this fall, but most seem untouched by the winds of change. CBS's Kay O'Brien, about a female surgeon, is Dr. Kildare crossed with Cagney & Lacey. In ABC's Jack and Mike, a newspaper columnist rushes to help folks in trouble while trying to keep her marriage afloat, a yuppie update of Hart to Hart. In CBS's Downtown, a tough cop gets crime-fighting help from four oddball parolees, a sort of B-Team. In addition to the routine fare, however, Bochco and Mann are introducing second- generation shows of their own. If neither is as groundbreaking as its predecessor, both exhibit a quality rare in prime time: they are unmistakable products of their creators, not of the TV assembly line.

Bochco's career has stumbled since the initial success of Hill Street Blues. His much touted 1983 series about a minor- league baseball team, Bay City Blues, was canceled after a few low-rated weeks. In March 1985 he was fired from Hill Street, reportedly after disputes with his bosses at MTM Enterprises about cost overruns. Nevertheless, NBC is giving his new series, L.A. Law, a double-barreled send-off. The two-hour pilot episode premiering this week will have an unusual encore presentation in the Saturday Night Live time period two weeks later.

L.A. Law, which revolves around the doings at a high-powered Los Angeles law firm, exhibits most of Bochco's now familiar trademarks: a large "ensemble cast"; multiple, overlapping plots; a rounded look at its characters' personal and professional lives; and a well-calculated mix of drama and comedy. Stylistically, however, the show is more conventional than Hill Street. The long camera takes inside the station house, with characters streaming in and out of the frame, have been replaced by more routine TV close-ups.