Danny Sorenson

Danny Sorenson was a fictional detective on the popular TV series, NYPD Blue, appearing from season six through season eight. The character was played by actor Rick Schroder.

Sorenson was introduced in episode six of the sixth season as the 15th squad's replacement for the deceased Bobby Simone. He was partnered with Detective Andy Sipowicz. Because he was replacing the well-liked Simone, Sorenson encountered some initial hostility from Sipowicz, who was Simone's former partner, and Detective Diane Russell, Simone's widow. Sipowicz and Russell were also skeptical of Sorenson's youth, as he was only 28 at the time he earned his gold detective's shield. The confident Sorenson was quickly able to earn the respect and acceptance of his co-workers by proving himself a highly capable detective.

Sorenson soon struck up a volatile romantic relationship with uniformed officer Mary Franco. However, the relationship was undermined by Sorenson's troubled psyche. It was hinted throughout the character's run that Sorenson had a difficult childhood and was left with a lot of deep unresolved issues that caused him personal torment. His personal demons were a constant barrier to emotional intimacy in his relationship with Franco. Although it was never actually explained, his issues might have had something to do with learning that his mother had abandoned him and his sisters rather than dying as his aunt and uncle had told him.

Sorenson also had something of a savior complex. On one occasion, Sorenson forced one of his informants, over the objection of Franco, to spend the night at his apartment out of concern that the informant would overdose if he was out on the street. Sorenson fell into a downward spiral when he found out the next morning that the informant, who left in the middle of the night through the bathroom window, had overdosed in an abandoned building and then been burnt to death when the building was torched by an arsonist. Sorenson was visibly shaken by the death, as it reminded him of an incident involving his sisters when he was young. After finding Sorenson in tears in the locker room, Russell took a maternal interest in Sorenson and attempted to counsel him through his grief. Sorenson showed up drunk on Russell's doorstep later that evening. Russell, a recovering alcoholic, let him sleep it off on her couch, and in the morning again offered him her counsel.

Romantic feelings soon developed between Sorenson and Russell. Ultimately, Sorenson broke up with Franco, and began a highly destructive relationship with Russell. Russell eventually ended the relationship out of guilt, feeling she had betrayed her deceased husband. Sorenson was thrown into a personal tailspin, and work relations between him and Russell quickly deteriorated. He started beating up suspects on the job and starting ugly fights with Russell. Unbeknownst to any of the other detectives and not revealed until his fate was sealed, his mother had come to New York to try to make amends with her children around the same time that Russell broke up with Danny, which retroactively helped to explain the emotional crisis that overtook him. He hit rock bottom when he beat up a double-murderer and got the case against the guy thrown out, putting his career in jeopardy. Andy was disgusted and told Danny he would have to self-destruct or get right on his own, but still did his own investigation that solved the case and saved Danny's career, which Danny repaid by saving Andy's career and freedom by proving his partner's shooting of three young African Americans was self-defense and therefore justified.

However, after Diane began a serious relationship with the doctor who had treated Bobby Simone during his fatal illness, Sorenson began drinking heavily and on one occasion showed up on the job with alcohol on his breath, something that did not go unnoticed by recovering alcoholic Sipowicz. During this time, Sorenson also got involved in a dangerous relationship with Kristen, a dancer at a seedy strip club. The owners of the club, who were under police investigation, approached Sorenson about working for them by providing information about the investigation. Sorenson took the news to his boss, Lt. Rodriguez, who authorized Sorenson to go undercover. While at the strip club one evening, Sorenson got into a fight with an obsessive fan of Kristen's. Sipowicz was called to take the drunken Sorenson home. There, Sorenson and Sipowicz had a conversation about Sorenson's relationship with Russell. Sipowicz also attempted to talk Sorenson out of his self-destructive ways, pointing out the dangers of getting involved with Kristen and working undercover at the club. Sorensen also opened up a little to Andy about his past, saying he felt he could finally get a good night's sleep after so many years of insomnia.

The next morning, Sorenson failed to show up at work, causing Sipowicz and Detective Connie McDowell to go to his apartment. They found no sign of Sorenson, but did find Kristen's dead body, and in getting a confession from her obsessive fan they found out he never saw Danny and had nothing to do with him vanishing. Andy also learned that Danny had contacted a long-shunned relative before his disappearance to get his mother's phone number, perhaps to finally confront her about abandoning him and his sisters. After Sorenson had been missing for several months, an informant tipped the squad off to the location of a buried rug in Brooklyn. Inside the rug was Sorenson's body; he had been murdered by a mob hitman who also killed an undercover FBI agent working on the strip club investigation. He was interred soon after.

Writer Darwin Mayflower commented in a 2003 article, "Sneaking a Peek at Deadwood," about NYPD Blue creator David Milch, "He had once again created another rich and complex character, Danny Sorenson..." Some felt Danny Sorenson was the show's last true 'Milchean' character. Though Schroder's dark, realistic portrayal was heralded as surprising and a welcome shot in the arm to the aging show forced to compete with cable's heightened realism, the overwhelming consensus among internet posters was that his story suffered as a result of the author's departure in season eight. This was evidenced largely in the ill-conceived, protracted arc with Diane Russell, but also in the increasingly mainstream sensibility of the show. The new writers seemed at a loss to know how to fit him into the show's new direction, or how to properly build from the complex template his creator had left behind. N.Y. DAILY NEWS television critic David Bianculli wrote in his review of season eight, "Danny, we hardly knew ye - and that was the writers' fault, not Schroder's", referring to the fact that Danny had devolved from a stoical, quietly disturbed young man, who was a "mercurial" detective, and had forged a peer-to-peer relationship with Andy, to being singularly troubled, emotionally dependent, and professionally inept. Bianculli further criticizes his relationship with Russell, and concluded that it "served neither character well." Although they revealed critical childhood events that shaped Danny's adult life at the end, there remained frustration among fans of the show that Danny's personal demons and other historical details remained mysteries.