HBO orders pilot of cop show by David Milch

David Milch is staying with HBO, and returning to the type of show that first won him acclaim.

The cable network has ordered a pilot for “Last of the Ninth,” a cop show set in the “Serpico” days of the New York Police Department in 1972.

“It is about an older detective’s mentoring of a young detective returned from Vietnam in a department fiscally crippled, under attack by revolutionaries, and which has been brought by allegations of systemic corruption into public disrepute,” Milch tells The Hollywood Reporter.

It’s his third straight collaboration with HBO, following “Deadwood” and “John from Cincinnati.”

Milch, who co-created “NYPD Blue,” began his TV career on the game-changing cop show “Hill Street Blues” and in 1983 won the first of his four Emmys for writing an episode.

He also created the short-lived CBS series “Big Apple” and was an executive producer of “Brooklyn South.”