Last rites for Bobby

Come Tuesday and the agony will be over - for cop and viewer alike. Andrew Stone prepares the eulogy.

The torture is about to end. The agonising illness of Detective Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits) is resolved. Prepare yourself on Tuesday for some of the most gruelling viewing yet from the NYPD Blue team and marvel at the astonishing reach of Smits, the cop show's quiet achiever.

The outcome is an open secret, given that Americans watched the episode amid the usual hoopla in November. Then a gushing actress at the Oscars last month couldn't help herself when she spotted Smits among the tuxedoed crowd.

That shouldn't deter fans of the Blue world and admirers of Smits, who in the past four weeks has filled each episode with understated power as his diseased heart gave up the ghost.

We expect American actors to talk and talk and talk. Smits has never played with much more than a minimalist script. His skill, especially as his heart condition deteriorated and the surgeons went for a transplant, has been to wring every last ounce out of the wheezing life he was suffering.

Wired up like a workbench, Smits transmits his helplessness with the tic of an eye or the faint rasping of a barely audible sentence.

The rest of the cast - and even the regular rancid slice of the Big Apple - have been pushed aside for Bobby to get to the bigger job of living or dying.

He has dreamed (yes, in a cop show) and he has been scared. He has been afraid of dying and though he didn't want to he sent frissons of fear through the 15th precinct.

It is easy to forget that Smits joined the cast after David Caruso fell out with its producers in a salary row. As Detective John Kelly, the red-haired Caruso had lent an edgy presence to the street cops - and in one memorable show bared his backside.

Caruso achieved a formidable partnership with been-there-since-the start Detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) and made everyone wonder how the show could survive his departure.

But who now remembers Caruso? The producers resolved the split four seasons ago by putting Sipowicz at the core of the show. We watched him battle with booze, wrestle with insecurities and nurture his slow burning relationship with Assistant District Attorney Sylvia Cotas (Sharon Lawrence).

Back then Simone played with his pigeons on a high-rise roof and was the quiet guy behind the volcanic and unstable Andy.

Smits, who joined the show from LA Law, worked subtly and effortlessly to carry his character along. He seemed to have few lines but he made you listen.

The tragedy in his past, his first wife died of breast cancer, hinted at a sorrowful life. Patsy, the roof guy who fed his pigeons, seemed his only true friend - until the thing began with Detective Diane Russell (Kim Delaney).

Unlike Sipowicz - who would declare war on a slightly stale bagel - Simone did not raise the room temperature.

Compare the partnership, Sipowicz and Simone. Andy - irascible, obnoxious, combustible, who could love this guy? Bobby - tranquil, refreshing in a New York cop sort of way, a perfect match for Diane.

A yin and yang on the mean streets. And that, for four years but especially in this most recent season, has been the key to Smits' presence and helped to keep a long-running show fresh and vital.

Always tightly written and invested with New York's pulsating energy, the Stephen Bochco production has never lacked for top-drawer direction.

To prepare for his role Smits spent time with New York's finest. He clearly found they are not all as brutal as their record suggests. The last few episodes have been compelling evidence how a few slight gestures can pack so much punch and illustrated why NYPD Blue pulls rank on competing cop dramas.

Adios Bobby.

Who: Jimmy Smits

What: NYPD Blue

Where: TV3

When: Tuesday, 9.30 pm