Homicide

The show that spawned an entire series of Australian TV cops shows (Division 4, Matlock, Bluey) Homicide premiered as a black and white show filmed on flimsy sets with very little location filming and ended its days as a colour presentation with extensive location shooting. Just about every Australian actor of any note in the 70s and 80s got a start on Homicide.

Homicide was NOT Australia's First drama TV series. Crawford Productions produced a courtroom drama which was titled "Consider Your Verdict. Several actors, both male and female gained prominence through this early production and lessons learned from "Consider Your Verdict" were used in devising "Homicide". Several big names of Australian TV passed through the ranks of actors, John Fegan, Leonard Teal, singer Lionel Long, Alwyn Kurts, Norman Yemm, George Mallaby among them.

"Homicide" was one of the first shows to be produced in colour in preparation for Australia's transition to colour broadcasting in 1975, the first colour episodes made as early as 1972. Sadly shows like this are no longer being made as the TV stations are too busy spewing out rubbishy "reality" shows and inane game shows while our acting talent is being wasted(John Wood, of Blue Heelers fame now has to appear in a stupid betting app ad).

One of the best Aussie police shows ever,along with division4 and matlock police. Unfortunately nothing ever released on DVD of all three shows.I have a few episodes on DVD that I have got from the TV and I love nothing more than watching these great Australian police shows.Along the way there has been a great number of actors used in these shows.A few of these actors have even gone on to Hollywood and made big names for them selves overseas, as well as local actors here that have even starred in other Australian made shows.The best part of watching these shows was trying to figure out where and which suburb in Melbourne it had been filmed at.

This was one of my very first recollections of an Australian television series. It was a police drama involving elegant dressed detectives, stationed in the city headquarters,investigating serious crimes (mainly murders), which is probably where it gets the name "HOMICIDE". The first pilot to the series was debut before I was born back in 1964, hence I cannot comment on what I haven't seen. I recall later episodes and when I heard the opening score (being a well composed classic) at a much later age, it rang a bell to when I was probably four or five years old. Firstly, it was made on a shoe string budget and I later discovered that most of the actors also played their own stunts. It has a blend of great Australian actors and most of them would later be noticed on other Australian television.

What made this television series special in my humble opinion, is recalling that most of the episodes that I saw were all urban based, being something very very rare for Australian television, as most of Australian television is always based on the outback, unfairly giving an international image of Australians as only rural in nature (hoping not to offend anyone here). This is one feature of Australian television that really annoys me, and the portraying of a one sided image of Australian life does not do Australian culture much justice, especially, ignoring the fact that there are also skyscrapers and densely populated cities. The series "HOMICIDE" did try to fill in this Australian picture. By the same token, anyone who enjoyed this series would also enjoy the rural counterpart "MATLOCK POLICE", being in my humble opinion the rural equivalent of 'HOMICIDE" - and also amongst Australia's very best television. This would have to be amongst Australia's earliest and sadly the very best of Australian television series.