Homicide: Life on the Street – The Complete Series (DVD) | Crime Drama Collection

Awesome Series

I watched all five seasons of "The Wire", and I was craving more, until I realized that the Baltimore author, David Simon, wrote the books which inspired both "The Wire" and this show. So, on faith, I got the full seven seasons of Homicide, and I was not disappointed. If you like "The Wire", I can virtually guarantee that you will like "Homicide".

Both shows have ensemble casts, and follow the pattern of "Hill Street Blues" rather than the "Law and Order" model, where all four or six principle characters are in every episode. An entire episode of Homicide can go by and you don't see a third of the cast, and another third of the cast are background or "color". Aside from "Hill Street Blues", the show this most reminds me of is "The Closer", except that there is less activity away from the squad room, and no character plays as central a role as Brenda Lee Johnson, and there is less cordial, more realistic interactions with "the bosses", above the shift commander Lieutenant.

I'm glad I got all the seasons at once, because if I had just gotten the first season, I may have been a tad disappointed at first. On the one hand, there are several delightful, strong characters. lead by Ned Beatty (in the only "featured" role, Andre Braugher, Yaphet Kotto and Richard Belzer (Yes, I know, Belzer is NOT in the same class of actor as the first three, but by now, he is such a familiar face that he makes you feel at home.) On the other hand, Daniel Baldwin and Jon Polito don't seem to fit in, which is probably why they leave in after the third and second seasons respectively.

Both leave by their dying, Polito's character by suicide and Baldwin's character by shooting. The reaction to deaths, and even to woundings in this show is more intense than you see in any other cop show. The interactions between characters is deep, especially between partners, such as between characters played by Beatty and Belzer.

Aside from Beatty, one performance stands head and shoulders over the others. That is the role of Frank Plembleton, played by Richard Braugher. The show's producers can be thankful that he stayed for six out of the seven seasons.

The show does follow patterns similar to some some other cop shows, where there is a crime of the day in the foreground, and a situation with one or more characters persisting in an ark over several episodes, usually between two and four, although one does last for the better part of a season and another spans all seven seasons.

The extras in this set are well worth while. The best is the three "Law and Order" episodes in which two or three "Homicide" characters, especially Detective Munch, appear. Each is paired with three Homicide episodes, in which two or three "Law and Order" characters, primarily Briscoe, appear in "Homicide" episodes.

There is also a full length 2 hour TV movie, in which all the characters over the seven seasons reappear. The plot is a reasonably good mystery, but the object of the film is simply to pull everyone together one last time.

First, I must say my wife and I love and cherish this series. Having never seen the series when it originally aired, and after purchasing the beautiful 'filing cabinet' series set, we poured over each season in order over a several month period one summer. On occasion we could have watched whole seasons in marathon sessions, but forced ourselves to only watch one or two episodes at a time just so we could appreciate and savor it even more.

***SPOILERS FOLLOW***

That said, I can't help but feel the writers of both the series and the closing movie really missed a golden opportunity. Recall the the whole series began with rookie Det. Tim Bayliss' being assigned a case that would haunt and torture him throughout the rest of the series - the murder of a little girl named Adena Watson.

Despite hours of air-time being devoted to the pursuit of this case, culminating in a stunning episode shot entirely in the interrogation room ("The Box"), the characters and viewer never discover the full truth surrounding Adena Watson's murder. As the series progresses Det. Bayliss would periodically be confronted with references and reminders of this painful 'first case'. Doesn't it make perfect sense that the very case that introduced this series to the world, and that left tantalizing bread crumbs throughout the seasons that followed, should be dealt with in the final episode of the series? Or at least been given time in the closing movie that followed?

Adena Watson was the perfect cliff hanger. As each season progressed I just knew that her case was coming back - when? we didn't know. And as the series neared it's end, it became clear that the writers were saving this one for the finale. And why not? It made perfect sense. Closing the Adena Watson case would be the ultimate in 'closure' for this show.

Now, don't get me wrong. I wasn't expecting everything to end with all the loose strands tied up in pretty bows. This wasn't Law & Order after all (a show we also enjoy for it's own merits). Many of Homicide's story lines ended messily. But so do many of the events of real life as well. And that is what made this series gritty and compelling. Nevertheless, of all the haunting cases in the series, this is the one that deserved some measure of 'closure' even if it wasn't going to be neat and clean.

I have to say, while we still look back on the series with fondness, there is a bit of disappointment that this golden opportunity was overlooked. After all, if even the Luther Mahoney story arc saw a measure of 'closure', I believe poor Adena Watson deserved it even more.

Never a ratings-beater, "Homicide" was still, for six and a half years, the best thing on network TV. Credit NBC for carrying the show as long as it did, a rare recent instance of a network getting behind a critically-lauded show. (If "Homicide" premiered today, it would be gone in a season, or less.) "Homicide" boasted one of the finest ensemble casts ever assembled for a series: Richard Belzer (who carries his role forward on "Law and Order: SVU"), the great Yaphet Kotto, Kyle Secor, Clark Johnson, Melissa Leo, Reed Diamond, Jon Seda, Callie Thorne, Isabella Hofmann, Zeljko Ivanek, Ned Beatty, Daniel Baldwin, Giancarlo Esposito, Jon Polito and the man who just might be the best actor in America, Andre Braugher.

The show, executive produced by Baltimorean Barry Levinson, took off from David Simon's superb book chronicling a year in the lives of the city's homicide squad, and seldom has an author been better served by another medium. (Simon also worked as a story editor.) The characters are not based on their real-life counterparts so much as suggested by them, but some of their investigations were replicated, most especially the inquiry into the murder of a young girl, which kicked off the show's first episode. The unsolved mystery surrounding "Adena Watson" carried through the show as a kind of thematic mantra, haunting Detective Tim Bayliss right up to the final two-hour series finale movie. "Three Men and Adena," the episode-long interrogation of the prime suspect, played in a scorching, indelible turn by the late Moses Gunn, was the first great episode of the series, the one that grabbed you by the lapels and said, in essence, keep watching, kiddo -- this is not your father's cop show.

What set "Homicide" off from such enjoyable but rather schematic shows as "Law and Order" was its accent, not on arrest and trial, but on the process of detection -- the way these men and women approached a murder and worried its elements like dogs on a particularly knotty bone. That, and the relationships between the detectives, added to the gritty, hand-held, jump-cut look and feel of it, helped made "Homicide" the wonder it was at its best... which was most of the time. Its writers (which included Paul Attanasio, Tom Fontana, James Yoshimura, the splendid playwright Eric Overmyer, Simon, and even Kotto) were never content to set up whodunits; their writing probed beneath the skin, and was often staggeringly effective. It caught (within the limits of network censorship) the realities of police speech, the dark and resigned gallows humor that attended the investigation, and the neuroses of the characters so perfectly that much of the show's dialogue would not have been out of place in a great work of theatre.

The "guest star" list is enormously impressive, and ultimately included Lily Tomlin, a very young Jake Gyllenhall, Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, Austin Pendleton, Edie Falco, Pamela Payton-Wright, Hazelle Goodman, Al Freeman Jr., Dana Ivey, Tony Lo Bianco, Mekhi Phifer, James Earl Jones, the great Lynne Thigpen, Jeffrey Wright, Baltimore native John Waters (twice, in different roles), Joe Morton, Carolyn McCormick, Anne Meara, Vincent D'Onofrio, and a pre-"SVU" Christopher Meloni. And while "Homicide" was most definitely an ensemble piece, in some curious way it followed two, not always parallel, arcs, becoming in effect the stories of Secor's Bayliss and Braugher's Frank Pembleton. Indeed, beginning as it did with Tim's arrival and ending with his ultimate leave-taking, both of which are inextricably bound up in the life and death of Adena Watson, the series is almost the Bayliss' story, and he is arguably the one character who alters the most, mentally, spiritually, philosophically and even sexually.

If there is a single problematic casting element in "Homicide," it's the implausibility of a man as dark-skinned as Yaphet Kotto as Giadello, the squad's black/Italian lieutenant -- when Giancarlo Esposito joined the cast as Giadello's son, you realized he looked the way Giadello should. Yet Kotto's is such a commanding, affecting presence it almost doesn't matter. (The "real" Giadello, Gary D'Addario, served as a technical advisor to the series and played in a dozen episodes.) I doubt Barry Levinson will ever write and direct a movie as good as this show. But then, neither will anyone else.

David Simon, the creator of HBO's "The Wire" and one of the brains behind "Homicide: Life on the Street", was asked recently why the "The Wire" has never had high ratings in the USA, despite getting mad love from the critics. His response was blunt. He put the show's poor ratings down to the fact that "The Wire" has a predominantly black cast, the unglamorous Baltimore setting and the fact that The Wire "requires thought and commitment to watch and absorb complex plotlines and subtleties. Television in America is by and large a vegetative medium."

I believe "Homicide: Life on the Street" was similarly affected. With all due respect to its citizens, the Fells Point district of Baltimore where this series is shot is not a particularly pretty part of the city and, with a sizable black population, it's inevitable that the vast majority of people the Baltimore murder police are likely to come across are going to be African American. I find it sad but can totally understand why that might not be what most people want to tune in on an evening to see - or indeed, later pay money to see on DVD. When you look at "CSI: Miami" for instance, (reportedly the most popular TV series in the world at the moment), you can immediately see the vast disparity between the two. Everything about that show is about glamour: the city settings, the big houses and big fast cars and everyone totally buff and beautiful. It's escapism at its best in that it bears little or no resemblance to reality. But in this age of superficiality and celebrity mania, I'm guessing this is what most folks are up for.

But I believe such folks are missing out. If "Homicide" is anything, it's realistic. This season was the first to have a full 22 episodes. The storylines are tense, gripping and real. The hand-held camerawork gives it the feel of a documentary. Even though the producers dropped Daniel Baldwin and Ned Beatty, brought in Reed Diamond and had Isabelle Hoffman's character demoted back to detective to, presumably, up the 'babe' factor of the cast, this is still by and large a collection of very ordinary looking but incredibly talented actors. I think that's one of the main reasons why it works for me. It's a completely rewarding experience and, after watching an entire season, I can very easily start again from the first episode and still get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

I don't wish to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet but we have fires, snipers, a wife who kills her husband (and the woman he was cheating on her with), drug wars, a "thrill killer" working his way up the I-95, a homophobic hate crime gone wrong, a child killed by a paedophile and any manner of murder mayhem. There are star appearances from people like Lily Tomlin, Chris Rock, Jay Leno, Marcia Gay Harden and Gary Basaraba. And in a slick crossover with Season 6 of "Law & Order", we get an appearance from members of the cast, including Jerry Orbach, Benjamin Bratt, S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterston and Jill Hennesy. The brilliant Max Perlich also guest stars as the squads new video man, Brodie.

Andre Braugher's wife Abi Brabson (who plays detective Pembleton's wife Mary in the show) gives birth to their baby towards the end of the season and to give Braugher time to spend with his newborn child, the producers cleverly decide to give him a stroke. It works in another way: Pembleton is easily the most accomplished detective on the squad, (a fact he makes sure everyone around him is acutely aware of), and it will be interesting in the coming season/s to see him have to work his way back up to any practical level of competency.

DVD extras include commentary on "The Hat", the episode starring Lily Tomlin, scene selection, interactive menus, song listings (a tool I've found very useful indeed) and a short documentary, "Homicide: Life in Season 4" narrated by Isabella Hoffman and featuring interviews with Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana, Henry Bromwell, David Simon and James Yoshimura.

The only thing I would've really liked that wasn't included was subtitles. Some of the terminologies go right over my head and it sometimes helps to see them in writing.

Still, I've bought Seasons 1 - 4 so far and am looking to getting Season 5 soon. I can barely wait.