Left Field Cinema

Before The Wire, before The Shield, before CSI and all of it’s mutant offspring, even slightly before NYPD Blue came Barry Levinson and Paul Attanasio’s Homicide: Life on the Street based on the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets a real life account of twelve months spent by the author David Simon along side the Baltimore homicide unit. From this excellent and extensive book The Wire also took much inspiration and Homicide and The Wire share the same East Coast city location. David Simon was creatively involved in both series. Simon was quoted as saying “Fuck the average viewer” on the BBC Culture Show in 2008, an utterance I would love to have on a T-shirt and one which should be the mantra for all Television producers.

Homicide first aired in January 1993 on the NBC network, its nine episode first season concluding in March that same year. It was then renewed for the miniscule four-episode second season which was completely aired in January 1994 before continuing onto its third season in September that same year, a season which ran for a more respectable twenty episodes until May of 1995. From there the regular American season pattern continued for Homicide every year until finally being cancelled at the end of its Seventh Season and some one-hundred and twenty-two episodes in May 1999. When the series was broadcast in the UK Seasons One and Two were amalgamated into a single run of episodes which can cause confusion between the Atlantic divide as to which season is which. For the purposes of this episode I shall be referring to the seasons by their correct and original US divisions, so seven seasons rather than six seasons.

Homicide is something of a small miracle; it is amazing that such a show ever came into existence. Before the audacious HBO one-hour dramas had even been invented, here was an American drama series which solely focused on the subject of murder. The act of murder - the most serious of all crimes that can be committed in most civilisations and one which the United States and in particular Baltimore, Maryland has plenty of experience of. Other police series which pre-dated Homicide, like Hill Street Blues for example would deal with the workings of a police unit which dealt with all kinds of crimes. Other shows would present a fantasy scenario which usually focused on one cop in particular like Kojack or Colombo, they were not based in reality but instead presented a more fun or action centred scenario with a primary drive to entertain rather than provoke or stimulate – the realities of police investigations were not relevant here, any more than the realities of New York apartment sizes were relevant to an episode of Friends. Homicide was different, not only did the show expect it’s audience to accept what is presented as reality, it actively sought to make its proceedings as authentic as possible; for the first two seasons in particular this was assisted no end by David Simon’s book, with entire storylines plucked straight from Simon’s prose. Central to the first season of Homicide is the Adena Watson storyline which follows rookie homicide detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) as he works on his first case as the primary (the lead investigator). The case in question is the molestation and murder of the eight-year Adena whose body is discovered at the end of the first episode entitled “Gone For Goode”. The names have been changed from page to screen but many of the events remain the same. On a smaller scale there are entire scenes lifted from the book almost page for page, for example in one stand out scene veteran detectives Stanley Bolander (Ned Beaty) and John Munch (Richard Belzer) prepare to use the Electro-Neutron scan on a young brain-dead murder suspect, the scan in question is actually a photocopy machine with the words true or false pre-typed onto the pages, they place the suspects hand on the copy screen and warn him of the possible health risks he faces if they use the machine. When asked if he killed their murder victim the man claims not to, but the pre-arranged paper in the copy machine says “false” thus forcing a confession from the young man. The exact same scene is used at the beginning of Season Five of The Wire although in that case it seems more unlikely that even the most uneducated corner boy wouldn’t know what a photocopy machine is – but in Baltimore who knows...

Seasons One and Two of Homicide are blessed with Simon’s novel, but it didn’t make for particularly ratings grabbing television, nor were the writers insistence that they write at least four storylines per each episode (one story for each of the main partnerships in the Homicide unit), the network producers would eventually insist that the number of stories be reduced to three per episode and the more innocuous storylines which focus mainly on the detective interaction and not much else were to also be reduced – from Season Two onwards the storylines became more immediate and later more sensational. The exploration of the banality of murder and murder investigations would be left by the wayside in favour of more extraordinary stories, this was no more telling than in the case clearance rates, early in the series the killer would routinely allude the detective, they might never have a suspect in the case, this sort of realism would become rarer as the show progressed. But still the detectives didn’t always catch the killer, and in some cases they would catch and convict the wrong man, as happens in real life but rarely on American television.

But this change in the show’s direction was required as even the well known cast which included the likes of Ned Beaty, Daniel Baldwin, Yaphet Kotto and a guest appearance from Robin Williams were not enough to draw in large audiences. The early 1990’s was a different time, American drama series were not treated as seriously as they are today, and this was before NYPD Blue or ER which would emerge a short time later – from there the rest is history – but Homicide still had an uphill battle to survive which meant concessions from season to season, be it members of the cast or the shows somewhat abrasive and French New Wave influenced visual style. Slowly but surely the brave new show was eroded and sanitised until it hardly resembled those first nine episodes. It is something of a small tragedy that by attempting to save the show by making it more accessible the series producers in effect killed the show. “Fuck the average viewer” as Simon proclaimed was clearly not the preference for the NBC executives. These concessions worked as far as the final season, but the last changes that were made at the beginning of season seven were a step too far resulting in cancellation of the show and a TV Movie to wrap up the events.

Let us return to that first miracle, and the beginning of the show. Homicide took a totally unique approach to its subject and one which had not been seen on American television before. The search for the authentic was at the centre of this approach visually, Homicide was the first show and for a long time the only show to use entirely hand-held camera work, shot on Super16 cameras the film quality was shaky and grainy, often using what minimal natural light was available to them, the night sequences (in early episodes) were often so dark that an audience member couldn’t correctly discern what was happening at any given time. In Season One the producers also deliberately de-saturated the images presenting a washed out world of muddy browns and greys, the look they cultivated in Season One was the first sacrifice for their short lived season two - suddenly the colour pallet appeared like any other show on television. The bleached look was deemed too off-putting to viewers, so primary colours were included in Season Two. But not everything was conceded right away; the beautiful monochrome title sequence which is livened up with splashes of red remained in tact (and would until Season Five). The titles were bold enough not to have faces and names but rather the faces in one order and then the names in alphabetical order (which differed to the order of the faces). Douglas J Cuomo’s off the wall score and distinctive title theme music would never be conceded either. Homicide’s title sequence and series music is unlike that of any other series before or since.

One of the shows primary innovations visually was the use of the jump-cut, (the jump-cut dates back to the beginning of motion pictures when frames from film reels would sometimes go missing or would be damaged, the picture would “jump” within a single coverage of the action and a section of time would be missed by the audience. At some point in the history of film editing this visual mistake would be employed deliberately for a desired effect. In Homicide the jump-cut was used heavily through the first four seasons, directors would play out a scene in front of the cameras several times with the slight changes in the blocking, and then jump-cut between the coverage’s creating a peculiar sensation and making characters appear to have miraculously moved from one side of a room to the other for example. As well as the jump-cut, the show’s editors also used a repeat cut in which a character would say a crucial line of dialogue several times with differing deliveries. This sort of radical editing would be expected in the more avant-garde reaches of world cinema, not an American Cop Drama broadcasting on NBC. Nowadays a much larger quantity of U.S. television series use predatory hand-held camera work, but at the time it was something of a disorientating experience, especially when coupled with the unorthodox editing. The likes of NYPD Blue and 24 might have copied the camera work from Homicide, but no major television programmes have been bold enough to copy their editing style in the years since – not even the riskier HBO drama series.

Another area where Homicide pioneered a new way of television producing was in its use of location. The city of Baltimore was not known very well outside of the United States at the time, it lacks the gravitas of New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C, San Francisco, or Chicago. Relatively speaking very few films are set there and even less television shows. But Baltimore is the birth place of Barry Livenson and of course where David Simon’s book is set and so naturally Homicide used it as the location over the more alluring cityscapes which are usually picked for such shows. Charm City it would be rather than The Big Apple or The City of Angels. Homicide producers went further than merely setting the show in this tough East Coast town, they filmed there as well. Outside of the Los Angeles bubble and far away from the prying eyes of NBC executives, the shows production team from the writers to the actors were all encouraged to live in Baltimore whilst they worked on the show – and like The Wire after it, Baltimore became the main character of the show. Watching Homicide or The Wire is like immersing oneself in the geography and culture of the city, like discovering a new America which has rarely been presented before, with its own distinct accent and an unique ethnic breakdown (a majority black city), it’s a harbour town where men and women enjoy crab cakes, and the murder rate averages almost one-a-day. By actually filming the show in Baltimore and in real locations rather than sound stages like most American television shows, Homicide took its greatest leap towards the authentic. Something that instantly stood out when compared to the more polished main stream dramas; to give a small example; when a scene takes place between two characters driving in a car, the car was always being driven in reality, no rear-projection, no phoney car set with perfect lighting and impossible camera angles. Also more often than not the cameraman would be sat on the back seat recording the conversation between the detectives and usually only capturing the sides of their faces from behind. Only the city morgue was a recreated set, as they used a real morgue in the first season but the actors complained about it so much that they were forced to build their own for season two.

Beyond the visual style, the unusual editing, and the technical and somewhat ideological pioneering of Homicide - are the characters, stories and energy. No show would be worth watching without assured excellence in all three of these areas and Homicide had it in droves.

The main cast of Homicide had a particularly high turn over, with four lead actors remaining for all seven seasons and a collective cast of nineteen main characters and dozens of reoccurring characters. But as is often the case, the first line-up for Seasons One and Two was the best. Starting with Richard Belzer’s Detective John Munch, the sarcastic know it all with a comically cynical edge. Munch in many ways least resembles a T.V. police detective but in avoiding the stereo-types he actually became one of the most believable of the bunch. At this point in time Belzer has now played Munch on a record breaking number of television programmes including Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, The X-Files, The Beat, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, Arrested Development, The Wire, Paris Criminal Investigations and Sesame Street. Belzer remains the only actor to play the same character on three different shows in one week when The X-Files, Law and Order and Homicide all aired in November 1997. Belzer has built the later half of his career around the character of John Munch and it is Munch’s distinctiveness which makes the character so transferable from one show to the next. From his consistent dress sense (black suit and black tie) to his unhealthy skinny bony figure and constant wearing of sunglasses in doors - Munch stands out a mile. A non-practicing Jew, an ex-hippy with three ex-wives and no children. He is arguably Homicide’s most interesting character. A true believer that the role of a Homicide cop is to close cases rather than dissect the workings of the criminal mind, his slothernly attitude towards criminal investigations makes him an unlikely hero. But he is arguably the heart and soul of the Homicide unit – going the full distance from first to last episode and keeping some of Homicide’s legacy going in the other shows he plays Munch in. Munch has turbulent relationships with his partners and perhaps never more so than with Stanley “The Big Man” Bolander. Bolander was played by Ned Beaty; possibly the most established of all the lead actors on Homicide, Bolander was another wonderful example of a creatively drawn character. Overweight, divorced, living in a small box flat and perpetually miserable with everything that goes on in his life, the first two seasons follow Bolander’s romantic entanglements, first with an Australian Medical Examiner and then with a young waitress. Despite Bolander’s miserable reputation he gets on with his life and is always striving to make himself happy (although it’s not always possible) as he states early in the series “this isn’t the best job to meet women, you meet plenty of widows but the timing never seems right”. Bolander and Munch are one of the most memorable on-screen partnerships, theirs was a cantankerous relationship, but not all the partnerships followed this route. Detective Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) a young black detective who grew up in the projects and Detective Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito) an older fat, bald, Italian have a partnership of mutual respect and admiration. Their contrasting age and ethnicity mean the respect they hold for one and other is beautifully realistic. Polito’s Detective Crosetti would be the first of many actors to leave the cast of Homicide at the end of Season Two, this was the behest of the network executives who deemed Polito not sexy enough (Ned Beaty had filled the larger older man quota for the series). It is a shame as Polito brought a real charm and zest to the character and the show, one of the major plot strands of Season One follows his investigation of the shooting of one of his friends, angered by the incident he hits a car window, the window doesn’t break, Crosetti pause before moaning “I think I broke my hand". The silver lining is that Crosetti’s exit from the show was amongst the most memorable of all the Homicide cast (I shan’t reveal more for fear of spoilers). Another more amicable relationship came in form of the partnership between Detectives Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) and Kay Howard (Melissa Leo), another memorable relationship which had it’s ups and downs but never succumbed to the temptation to let the characters get together, and barely hinted at any sexual attraction between the two characters. Howard was the only female detective in Homicide for the first four seasons – a piece of statistical realism as there is only one female detective in Simon’s book. Melissa Leo rarely wore make-up, often dressed in a more manly fashion and was “one of the boys” so to speak, she looked like a cop, she dressed like a cop, she acted like a cop. She didn’t look like she’d walked off the set of a shampoo commercial like so many cast members of CSI for example. Leo is a very talented actor and she brought an understated realism to the character of Kay Howard. Baldwin by contrast was probably the weakest of the Homicide cast members for the early seasons, not that Baldwin gave poor performances but he was consistently out acted by almost every other regular cast member. Not helped by the fact that Detective Felton was also the most poorly written of all the first and second season regulars; he was a clichéd cop in a show with no clichéd characters, luckily he was rarely the focus of more dominant storylines.

Perhaps more than any of the other partnerships in Homicide: Life on the Street, the most enduring, memorable, antagonistic, beautifully constructed and developed is that of Detective Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor). Pembleton is possibly the most responsibly written African American character in any U.S. television series to this point. Braugher had been wary of playing clichéd black characters as he had in Kojack previously as the over-sexed bed hopping Detective Winston Blake. The character of Pembleton offered Braugher a chance to play the opposite of Blake, a married man (in fact the only character in the early seasons to be in a stable marriage), a devout Jesuit who would later wrestle with his faith, a cop who hates guns (an indeed also never fires his weapon during the series – except in the shooting range) an African American who never uses so-called street language but instead philosophises about life and will continually sacrifice his own career and the friendships he’s built with those around him over a principle. Pembleton is not only the most memorable cop in Homicide he’s arguably the most memorable cop in any TV show before or since. But it is his relationship with Bayliss that defines Pembleton in many respects. Over the entire run of Homicide their relationship is a centre piece, they’re the longest lasting of all the partnerships and the one which goes through more development and more stages of drama. Pembleton is a loner, a man who likes to work by himself – in one fourth season episode a witness tells Pembleton that she doesn’t like talking to the police to which Pembleton truthfully response “I don’t like talking to many of them either”. Pembleton is his brothers keeper, that’s why he’s a cop. Bayliss wants to find the truth, he lets cases bother him, he gets confused and confounded by his own morality which often contradicts his better instincts. Pembleton sees morality clearly, if a cop kills someone it doesn’t matter that they’re a cop, murder is murder to Pembleton – whereas Bayliss would have to wrestle with the ethics of harming another police officer even if that officer has done something wrong. Bayliss is the new man in the department, the first episode is his first day on the job, Homicide is his journey from a rookie who is eager to please and wet behind the ears to the tutor who schools a younger Homicide cop in how to be a better officer. We watch him grow as a person, make mistakes (especially in love) change in terms of his ideas; go from being a homophobe red neck to a man who openly dabbles in bi-sexuality. The story of Pembleton and Bayliss is almost a love story; their love/hate relationship gave fire to the Homicide series and came close to Homo-erotic in its final hours. In one series three episode there is a criminal use of the track “I’ll stand by you” by The Pretenders as Pembleton quits the department (temporarily), this is an embarrassing musical mistake but it illustrates the closeness of the relationship perfectly. As much as Bayliss is emotionally an open book, Pembleton is closed to it all - so the brief tender moments the two share are all the more potent for their rarity. A tender scene in Season Five shows the pair finally having dinner together, the conversation and the events which lead to it are not profound but the scene is lasting because the event is so special.

Overseeing the Homicide department is Lt. Al Giardello, the shift commander, who appears more bear then man as played by the enormous Yaphet Kotto. Giardello is half African half Italian and balances his world between both his heritages. He is a constant father figure over all of the detectives but one who’s own ideals and nature can often thwart his better judgement, politically Giardello never makes friends with his superiors and often through mismanagement his detectives suffer. “If a general can’t protect the soldiers under him, what good is he? In any man’s army, what good is he?” Giardello asks himself in a fifth season episode where he fails help one of his officers who is under investigation by the FBI. Giardello is a widower and misses his wife dearly; he has three children most of whom he is estranged from in varying degrees because of his dedication to his job. He makes for an interesting and flawed leader, but it is his sense of humour which really makes Giardello stand-out. He shouts like he’s angry when he’s actually happy, he acts happy and smiley when he’s the most pissed off. Giardello’s humorous interludes are amongst the funniest in Homicide. Homicide’s ethnic breakdown is also something to be cherished and praised, for the first six seasons there were always three black characters in the mix, Lewis, Pembleton and Giardello – none of whom conform to stereotypes, none of whom are baseless clichés or token creations. In Season Seven the number of black characters increased to five which made up half of the series regulars (it was the only prime time drama to have that many African-American characters).

Other characters would be added to the shows cast as the series developed. Lt. Megan Russert would be brought in to replace Crosetti in the third season, her some what mumsey appearance didn’t offset the delicate gender balance too much. Her more maternal approach was a nice contrast to Kay Howard’s more masculine attitude to work. However the character was painfully dull and was thankfully written out not before time. The next major addition was that of Detective Mike Kellerman, of all new main characters to join the cast – he was the best. Played perfectly by Reed Diamond, Kellerman is described by his older brothers as being “born with a badge on his butt”. He’s a cop and that’s all he knows how to do, he’s the man who associates who he is with what he does, and thus makes the perfect character to get chewed up by the system he reveres. Kellerman kept a low profile in Season Four when he joined the cast, but was soon suspended in Season Five when he was falsely accused of taking bribes – Kellerman is innocent but everyone thinks he’s guilty. Once this ordeal has passed Kellerman’s rose tinted view of the world become darker and he become the black sheep of the squad, he becomes the dirty cop, he hates the job he adored and he alienates all those who’d protect him with his new abrasive attitude. Kellerman’s development was a fascinating example of television writing, where over three seasons a writer can take a character in a realistic and slowly developing direction. Characters like Munch and Lewis remain relatively consistent through the entire series, characters like Bayliss and Kellerman change but that change is caused by the events which befall them.

Later the cast turn over would increase severely with the addition of Video Man JH Brodie played by Max Perlich (in a rather foolish attempt to lighten up the stories) superior additions include Juliana Cox as a Chief Medical Examiner (played by the usually stern faced Michelle Forbes), Detectives Laura Ballard and Stuarty Gharty (played by Callie Thorne and Peter Gerety who can also be seen in The Wire as the first Mrs McNulty and Judge Phalen). But things went down hill with Detective Paul Falsone (Jon Seda), another cliché tough-guy Italian; he’d have been better suited in Nash Bridges instead of Homicide, Falsone became a particular figure of hatred for Homicide fans when he was introduced with websites being set up dedicated to riding the show of his clumsy character (this was made worse by the volume of screen time the character received in Season Six eclipsing the likes of Munch and Pembleton). Detective Terri Stivers (Toni Lewis) was a fairly dull character who some how seemed less interesting once she was promoted from re-occurring character to regular character. Mike Giardello (Giancarlo Esposito as an FBI agent and the Lt’s first born son) was also a poor choice, it seemed to take forever for Esposito to find his character and when he eventually did the show was all but over. But the worst of all the additions in the final season came with Rene Shepard (Michael Michele) who was far too attractive to be taken seriously, Michele also not being up to the actorly calibre of former Homicide regulars, her character was given a beauty queen back story which was as implausible as it was desperate.

From season to season the quality of Homicide changed, Seasons One, Two, Three and Five being superior, and Seasons Four, Six and Seven dropping somewhat in quality. Although some would argue the first season is Homicide’s finest, I’d argue Season Two is pitch perfect with its four episodes there isn’t a bad egg in the basket where as Season One did have some teething problems related to characterisation and music choices in particular. Season Five is my personal high point for the show, they’d been renewed for two seasons rather than one so they were able to play with story arcs and characters in a way they’d not been previously allowed to, in particular Kellerman and Pembleton’s story lines from Season Five are master classes in writing.

The Season One episode Three Men and Adena exposed the battle ground for Homicide – the interrogation room. Whilst other shows relied on shoot-outs, fist fights and car chases, Homicide relied on the interrogation scenes which could be more riveting than and fire fight or high speed collision. Three Men and Adena took place almost entirely in the interrogation room for its forty-five minute length – it was a stunning experiment in American Television and one which demonstrated that really all you need for a good production to work are accomplished actors, a good script, a small room, three chairs and a table – the episode was more enthralling than a hundred shootouts could possibly hope to be. Through Homicides run the emphasis was always on dialogue and character and although this did slowly change, the shows discipline remained for the most part, no police officer in the cast even fires their gun until The Wedding episode towards the end of Season Four; in it’s entire run there are but four car chases, the first three having comical undertones and parts of more light-hearted storylines. A Season Seven episode would produce the shows only serious car chase that results in a fatal collision, but even this car chase had an extra dimension to it, as Homicide detectives chase a bounty hunter who is chasing their suspect. Although a few of the series regulars are killed off over the years and a number of them are shot, the action is never presented unrealistically. In America at the time, a police detective was more likely to take their own life than be killed in the line of duty and the show’s producers were acutely aware of this statistic. The rarity of action sequences made the ones which actually occurred all the more staggering and shocking, the first time an officer shoots a suspect dead in the aforementioned Season Four episode, there is a uneasy silence after the event, made worse by the revelation that the man they’ve killed is actually innocent of the crime they were pursuing him for.

The show is about murder, a very important part of the series, yet rarely is the act itself depicted on screen. Where other police centred shows might start with the crime as it’s committed (or at least flashback to it as it’s being committed once the killer is revealed) Homicide rarely gave into the temptation, maintaining the Homicide detective’s perspective at all time – they never directly witness the crime so neither do we. Other standout episodes played with the perspectives, Bop Gun from Season Two showed the investigation from the point of view of a grieving husband played by Robin Williams as he copes with the differing grief of his two children, one doesn’t understand and the other is angry at him for not protecting their mother – it is a beautiful episode which shows Williams character’s frustration at the detached attitude of the detectives – they have to be detached to do the job and not go insane but the widower can not grasp this concept as he overhears Felton boast about how much over time he’s going to make from the case. The Season Three finale, The Gas Man, took the perspective of a convicted killer played by Bruno Kirby who after being released from prison decides to stalk Detective Pembleton and plots to kill him, a rare episode that is directed to Barry Livenson himself and gave us an unusual glimpse into a central characters personal life whilst making a negligent killer responsible for the death of an entire family seem sympathetic.

An excellent Season Four episode A Doll’s Eyes changes to the perspective of the victim’s family as a young boy is shot randomly and is only kept alive by life support systems. Marcia Gay Harden and Gary Bararaba put in career best performances as the grieving parents who have to come to terms with what’s happened, the future of their family has been eradicated in a split second, but the echo of their son still lives in a vegetative state presenting them with the ethical conundrum of whether to let him die or maintain this pointless life. The randomness of violence, the fleeting nature of life, the grief of a parent are expertly managed in a rare tear-jerking episode of the series which will melt the coldest of hearts.

The Season Five episode Have a Conscience directed by Uli Edel is arguably the finest hour of Homicide as one detective attempts to talk another out of taking their life. An episode that redefined tension and also presented the second half as one sustained sequence in one location with two characters. By this point we’re so invested with the characters in question that the episode is almost unbearable to watch.

Season Six high point saw the action-packed conclusion to the long running Mahoney plot line as detectives are put in the line of fire and the back of the unit is broken by a lie, “a damn lie” as one detective puts it. The two-parter Fallen Hero’s featured two sustained shoot-outs, numerous casualties in a bullet happy set piece as directed by Kathryn Bigelow. But even here as Homicide walked the dangerous line of becoming like so many other cop shows, the writers pulled everything back and the final battle was fought with words in the interrogation room (or the “box” as the detectives describe it) rather than with bullets in the street. This is arguably where Homicide should have ended, the show would have wrapped on a high note and their 100th episode, but instead it staggered on. The first five episodes of Season Seven are easily the worst the show ever produced, but it did pick-up as the season went on. Bigelow again directed the best episode of the season, In the Line of Fire, where a man played by Ron Eldard goes insane and takes his children hostage. A hostage negotiation ensues without any of the usual clichés. Homicide: The Movie would boast the impressive feat of getting every series regular to return for duty one last time, but was ultimately a bit too messy and had to dedicate too little screen time to too many characters – it did however wrap up all the plot strands left dangling at the end of the last season.

At the time of its inception there had been nothing on TV quite like it, and at the time of its demise every major network had awoken to the potential for serious drama. One of the show’s producers Tom Fontana would go on to make Oz, the prison centred drama and the first HBO one hour drama series which would set the trend the likes of The Soprano’s and Six Feet Under to come. In many respects Homicide was before it’s time and on the wrong network, who knows what the cynical writers would have created had the show been produced for HBO during the Bush administration rather than NBC in the happy-go-lucky Clinton years. Some areas of the show have dated more than others, the lack of swearing, nudity or the obscuring of the more grizzly murder victims seem edgeless in today’s era of confrontational television where sustained torture sequences no longer shock audiences. But there are areas where Homicide remains timeless, not just its on-location realistic look, not just the abrasive and unorthodox editing, not just its dramatic restraint – but also in terms of sharp dialogue and sense of humour. Rarely does a Homicide episode go by without a laugh-out-loud moment and the more familiar you are with the characters mannerisms and idiosyncrasies the more endearing they become. The squad room seems like home, the Waterfront bar seems like your watering hole, the fate of these men and women are of the utmost concern – the show is so damn good you might even fancy a trip to Baltimore just to see what it’s really like! So pick up the joint Season One and Two boxset and give the show a go, as Homicide still remains the best American drama of the 1990’s.

M.Dawson