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Rating:  -
This is a brilliant show, and the boxed set is nicely packaged and thorough. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating: -
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.
Rating: -
If you like Homicide Life On The Street you should get this set. It has everything from the Law and Order episodes that intertwine with Homicide to the Homicide Movie. It has some really good extra features (a documentary about real Homicide Detectives, interviews with the creator, producers, David Simon (series based on his novel),etc. The only thing I wish there was more interviews with the cast members. Prices on here are crazy. Try Half.com or Ebay.
Rating: -
Honestly, what else can be said? I don't actually own this set, I foolishly bought each season individually. I started watching this show freshman year of high school. My dad and I made it a friday night tradition. Yes, I forsook going out many nights to watch this show, I was that riveted. This goes beyond mere "television", in fact, this is what television should aspire to be. How else can you explain the fact that the most gritty and realistic cop show in TV history is also one of the most bloodless? The answer is simple, it is simply that cerebral. Every episodes features several moments that to fully appreciate one must actually think, instead of merely blink and admire the eye candy as so many other shows seem to have seen as the route to success. Instead Homicide simply produced the most compelling television, we should feel blessed that we were able to enjoy this. Is anyone really surprised that David Simon went on to be associated with a show as great as The Wire? Couldn't we see the writing on the wall? The people involved in this show (particularly Andre Braugher) were simply astoundingly good. Get this. Just get it. Actually, if you can't sit still for more than 30 seconds per scene or can't realize the concept that characters in TV shows can be affected by what happened in episodes prior stay away. People looking for what is probably the greatest TV drama of all time, look no further, this is a bargain.
Rating: -
Probably one of the best DVD purchases I've ever made. Has to be one of the best TV series of all time. Can watch it over and over.
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