User reviews

Ever since first encountering this Series, its title has held a certain fascination for this writer. First of all we have HOMICIDE, now that makes perfect sense. We've all heard that term used in countless Feature Films, Radio Dramas, TV Series, Pulp Magazines, Detective Novels, etc.

Then we have the second part of the Title, "Life on the Streets", the Sub-Title if you will. This is also a very descriptive, loaded phrase. The discussion of being "on the Street" is certainly an authentic phrase, used by the "Real Police" as much as by any authors.

But try putting the two together, as has been done here in this series and in the book that proceeded it, and what do you get? "HOMICIDE:Life On The Streets", is our answer but of course. But this is one Title that appears to be an instant oxymoron, for the juxtaposition of the two elements just doesn't blend. It would be much like blending Fire and Water, this Homicide & Life.

And yet, we do see what the Series creator Paul Attinsano is driving at. Either term by itself would not be adequate. It's just another case of the sum of the parts equaling more than the total.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let's start off by saying that there has never been a dramatic series that has started out to have such a high quality of story line and writing, and maintained the same as did Producer Barry Levinson's Baltimore Cop Show.

Starting off with the Cast, there was a certain vigilance observed to insure that there would be no 2 dimensional, stereotype cops and robbers situations. he actors charged with this task would all have to be first rate and selfless, as the series wasn't afraid to portray characters with "warts". You know, we see the thorns, as well as the roses.

Starting at the top, we have Unit Commander, Al Giardello(Yaphett Kotto), the product of a bi-racial marriage, having had an Italian Father and a Black Mother; Al navigates through the lexicons and cultural pools of either. Detective Steve Crosetti(John Polito) a truly grizzled veteran Cop/Detective. He would not move 2 feet if 1 1/2 feet would suffice. Very and obviously an Italian Ethnic, he is sometimes taken to be Lt. Giardello, as in the 1st episode. Det. John Munch(Richard Belzer), a guy who has wanted to be a Detective ever since he was a kid, though this would seemingly fly in the face of his Jewish heritage and upbringing. Being that he is well educated, extremely intelligent and street smart, he is doing this Detective business because he wants it, not because he failed at something else.* Others of the original Duty Roster are: Det. Frank Pembleton(Andre Braugher), a Black Guy who both grew up in the inner-city, but also can boast of being very well educated, by the Jesuits, yet. A manic when it comes to work, which is to a point to which he almost destroys his own health. Det. Tim Bayliss(Kyle Secor), new to the Detective Division. Smart, eager to learn he gets teamed with Pembleton. Formerly had some (Empty Holster)job in the Commissioner's Office. Melissa Leo as Det., a status seeker, works, slaves and studies hard to become a Detective/Sgt. of Police. Captain Megan Russert(Isabella Hoffman-Woo, woo, woo, woo!)now get this, she is a fictional cousin of NBC Newsman & Moderator of "MEET THE PRESS", Tim Russert(honest, that's what the series says!)

Rounding out the original "work sheets" are:Det. Stan Bolander(Ned Beatty)seemingly a sort of "dull blade', the blue collar guy found a great interest in classical music, even learning to play the Cello!Det. Meldrick Lewis(Clark Johnson)grew up in the Public Housing Project, Street Smart, Easy Going, Get's along with anybody and can work with anyone. My personal favourite Characterization.**ASA Ed Danvers(Zeliko Ivanek)excellent portrayal of Prosecutor and their relationship with "The Fuzz!" (Remember, in some States and the Federal Court System it's ADA(Assistant District Attorney), whereas such States as Maryland & my own Illinois use Assistant States' Attorney( ASA ).

Like so many series that last for any length of time, there were many, many changes in the line-up, more than most. Look it up! No more space will be allotted here! "HOMICIDE" truly dared to be different, and remained so through the course of its run. It made use of some multi-shot repeating fade-ins, all seen from slightly different angles,donned with accompanying sound of a short, blunt musical queue. (It has to be seen & heard).

Also, each and every "HOMICIDE" episode is much like a feature film. That is, each is able to stand on its own. And yes, there are a lot of continued story lines and ideas that carry from week to week, and it is better to follow the series week to week, but it's not necessary.

And it has the quality of sets, cinematography and really great, haunting music, both in theme and incidental music by Douglas J. Cuomo and Jeff Rona.

The whole story was neatly wrapped up with the 2 hour Made for TV HOMICIDE: The Movie(2000), which maintained the flavor of the series, yet still dared to be different.

NOTE: * Richard Belzer re-prised Det.Munch for "LAW & ORDER: Special Victims Unit. Munch has many 'crossover' appearances on the various other "LAW & ORDER" 'offspring'.

NOTE: ** In this author's 35 years on the Chicago Police Dept.,I met and worked with a lot of guys like 'Meldrick', but this was in my own "series"(my life on the streets!).

HLOTS was way ahead of its time and it's timeless. The writing (by James Yoshimura and others) was superb and kept you absorbed, wanting more as you waited the next week for the latest episode. The story arcs kept you on the edge of your seat, with a sense of satisfaction when names were scrubbed off the whiteboard after a crime was solved.

I have never been a big fan of police serials, but this is my all time favourite. I have nothing to add to the earlier comments, other than that in a time with complicated racial conflicts, poverty induced crime and the problems stemming from social inequality, this show tried to comment on the real problems facing the modern society.

And it was exciting too.

It was a gloomy day when NBC cancelled this amazing show, but unfortunately, not enough viewers were watching. It can now be viewed in syndication - as of January 1999 it is shown on Court-TV weeknights. "Homicide" was an Emmy and Peabody-award-winning show. Because of its unique shooting style, magnificent writers, and terrific actors, it is the best show I ever watched. Other cop shows are no comparison. In fact, no other drama on network television had such a racially diverse cast. This is the only drama I have seen with African-American actors in leading roles. It is a sad fact that there aren't other shows like it out now.

This show truly did duck the "system" of other dramas, staying true to the source and portraying realistic characters. Anguish, joy, anger, humiliation, and respect are evident in the faces of the characters in assorted episodes. The first few seasons were the best, in my opinion, but the other seasons were still better than anything else on the networks. I shudder to think that "Nash Bridges" beat this amazing show in the ratings. If you are at all interested, try to find this show on television in your area. There is no middle ground with this show; you will either hate it or love it. All that I know have become addicted to it.

Homicide was the best show of any genre to be made for television. It honestly gave the most detailed and truthful accounts about how criminal investigations really happen. It also touched on the personal lives of how many police officers live and how they deal with the daily grind of the job. I say this because I've been in law enforcement for 7 years and I know how things really happen. Homicide puts the truth in crime TV....all crimes don't get solved overnight or at all sometimes. Homicide touched on that very point in different episodes. It was a show that TV executives should have just let it run it's natural course. It was taken off the air well before it's time!!!

I found it amusing seeing a review from 22 years ago stating how the show was better "than the crap on TV nowadays". The "reality" tv plague was only in its infancy back then.

Authenticity is the calling card of this show, a very valuable trait in any contemporary set series. I'm a big HD snob and want to view things in the best possible quality, but no such luck with this show that was shot in such a way I believe to add to that authenticity, like you were following the detectives around "B-more" as they hunt the various miscreants shown throughout the 7 seasons of the show. But you just have to live with it, and its so worth it.

Believable and fleshed out characters are another necessity for a quality show, and you get one of the best in Andre Braugher's Frank Pembleton. The show being before my time, I was drawn to it from his classic performance of Holt on Brooklyn 99. Homicide is no comedy- Richard Belzer aside- but you get an amazing performance from Braugher here that you will remember for a long time. The show is at its best when its offering up poignant social commentary through the lens of his character. This is not to discredit the memorable performances of virtually all other regulars as well, none of which faltering along the way.

There are indeed laughs along the way, and other episodes that will set dread in you like few other shows can (see: A Doll's Eyes, S4). This show isn't a paint by numbers, predictable mindless drama like so many we see today.

The final season slips and stutters a bit, but this is still a must watch series, start to finish for anyone who enjoys quality crime drama. The Wire (also born of the work of David Simon) holds a special place in the pantheon of prestige television, but I enjoyed Homicide more.

Simply, the greatest one hour in television history. Imagine what a hit the show would be now, considering it influenced so many cop shows today? The story lines are incredible, that arc for multiple seasons. ITs like one great book, and lots of secondary stories and characters in between. The greatest show on television from years 1-6.

Some people say that show lost some steam when half of its original characters left from the first 4 season, but the story arc from season four to six, involving Luther mahoney, was brilliant. It tied every character together, and no one, and i mean no one, came away clean or unscathed.

Brilliant, powerful, emotional, heartbreaking, funny, Witty, classy, real, authentic, and just plain good. Television was spoiled to have it. Andrew braugher created the single great character of the cop drama. It did what some shows can not do back in the day; it held a single story line through out each season, instead of making one out of the last four episodes.

I love this series. I agree with other reviewers that it one if not the best police dramas of all times. Why can't I find it on any streaming service? I contacted NBC and Peacock and encouraged them to run the series. Both representatives said there were no plans to put in their line up. Does David Simon not want it to run? It is only up on YouTube in a very crude, bootleg version. Some episodes are unwatchable due to technical issues. I can buy the series but I enjoy the streaming format more.

I see The Wire is available on HBO Max. I will try that. In the meantime I'm reading the books Homicide:Life on the Street.

No doubt, the most realistic police show ever made.

Mean we all saw a lot of cop-shows in our life, most unrealistic, but this one is entirely different. Great characters, great acting, its more intellectual then all the rest.

no car chases, no gun-firing all the time

and, no high-tech computers.

cause that doesn't exist in real life.

and yet the show is still entertaining.

the difference is this show is not really about the murders. well it also is, but most of the characters are psycho-log. very deep. all with their own personal problems. the writing is fantastic, cause the dialogs, they just talk ass we all do - day by day.

Starting from the third season, the show begins to rapidly deteriorate, and by the fifth season it turns into a second-rate Mexican TV series. Characters become hysterical, their actions no longer correspond to logic and common sense.

At the time of "The Wire", master-minded by David Simon with the essential co-writing help of former Baltimore cop Ed Burns, I started hearing about "Homicide" and gave it a try. What a surprise I had because the sections of 'Wire' having to do with the local cops were light years better than the banal and unbelievable 'Homicide' shows I watched. It takes a certain lack of talent to write scene after scene that has virtually no believability to them. I bailed after a half dozen of. But over the years I kept reading about Simon & Wire & Homicide, so when my local library introduced the third season of Homicide, I decided to give it another try. My god, what a miserable show it is! Virtually all of the regulars seem to be beginning their PMS cycle and the 'cool' ones ultimately are shown to be ready for episodes of near-psychotic rage. Now I understand that Homicide is fiction, not documentary but the overall deciding style of the shows are going after super-realism and once that's chosen what ever becomes of the need for real life police personnel to detach themselves as much as they can from what they have to deal with on a daily basis to keep their mental health? Plenty of black humor, sure but the constant boiling point of rage? Then we get into the individual characterizations: Yaphet Kotto as the captain, plays the part as a detached, highly educated philosopher whose job description is to walk around the offices giving orders, without apparently having to stop and think about the logic of the orders. At times he's unwatchable. Melissa Leo, costumed and haired-up to be an undercover aging hippy, instead goes out on homicide calls with her hair, either blown out or in a long ponytail. Can't you just imagine a violent perp jumping at the chance to pull her into a compromising situation? Richard Belzer continues to be cast as the wiseguy cop doing standup; the Rodney Dangerfield of detectives. Daniel Baldwin, still vocally impersonating Edward James Olmos's whispering delivery is just so full of himself. Does he think his ego's a shield that will protect him from a well directed bullet? Isabella Hofman as Lt. Russert is simply miscast; I never, ever saw the interior toughness via her eyes that any cop must have, especially if your a slight and good looking woman in a position of leadership. Stories: Hatched too soon with story bugs not worked out. "Nearer My God To Thee" depicts a female serial killer who apparently had the wealth and leisure to go from city-to-city finding women of a very specific description to murder. How was she able to get into personnel records of these people? Also, why in god's name did she confess since she wasn't even a suspect? This episode also has an embarrassingly written and performed interrogation of the suspect by Andre Braugher which if actually occurred, would mean the immediate release of the suspect. Finally, for those of you who commented that this was the best police series they ever saw, rent or buy "The Wire"; you'll change your opinion immediately.

Sorry Law and Order, but there's just something special about this show and there's more of a place for it in my heart, and it has nothing to do with the fact it takes place in my home state (well OK, that's does have something to do with it). It had an unconventional style different from that of L & O, but there were times I found it to be more intellectual.

There was never a bad episode, and the casting was all good, especially Andre Braugher, Yaphet Kotto, Kyle Secor, and Richard Belzer. It's too bad that some cast members left earlier than they should of (Ned Beatty, Jon Polito), but they were ably replaced.

It's really a shame that more people didn't watch this show which led to its cancellation, and appreciate it more with some of the crap that's on TV these days, which is a sad commentary on TV viewers as a whole. Oh well, there's always the reruns on Court TV.

Another show I binge watch. I think every actor in this series is superb.

Homicide is, without question, the greatest T.v show ever produced. Brilliant writing and acting, and even with cast fluctuations, the quality rarely ever dipped.It's a shame it never caught the public's full attention, like inferior shows such as NYPD blue, but still survived 7 season's of close on perfection.Of the core cast, most people will pick Andre Braugher as the standout, playing Frank Pembleton, but for me Kyle Secor, as the decidedly odd, and constantly evolving Bayliss, and Yaphet Kotto as Al are the standout characters.The show is set in Baltimore and was produced under the watchful eye of Barry Levinson, a Baltimore native.All seven seasons are available, and a must have for any discerning viewer. Buy them now!!!!!

It is very easy to get hung up on platitudes when describing something you love and admire. I will resist the temptation to do so, but it will be difficult.

Truly the best written and acted show ever. While I am a Columbo fanatic, and think it is the best show of it's type, when it comes to police dramas with gritty details, HLITS is beyond the norm. An exceptional cast, excellent writing, and powerful cinematography.

If you get a chance, stroll through Baltimore with this show and enjoy a true work of excellence.

Remarkable cast, great writing, funny as any sitcom, as serious and poignant as any drama ever produced, Homicide still stands the test of time! Adapted from David Simon's book of the same name, this is a epic TV series. Check out the Homicide podcast on Sound Cloud called "From Red To Black. "

I still miss a show like this drama. It had a first cast, crew, and writing that no other show on television had until that point. Andre Braugher (I love you), Kyle Secor, Melissa Leo, David Belzer, Ned Beatty, Isabell Hoffman, Stephen Baldwin, etc. I only wished that they didn't get rid of Leo's character, Kay Howard, who I think was the best female heterosexual cop on television up there with Cagney and Lacey. I like the real life and on screen relationship between Hoffman and Baldwin. Let's put it to you this way, when they did the reunion film, everybody in the cast and crew reunited which is amazing because this cast and crew worked so well together that they formed relationships that would last a lifetime. Braugher's Emmy winning performance as Frank Pendleton is amazing and unforgettable. The show shot much of it on location in Baltimore itself and that city became part of the show's unique character.

HOMICIDE ran six seasons in the 1990s, documenting the solving of violent crime cases in Baltimore, and had a real who's who of a cast, including Andre Braugher, Yaphet Kotto, Ned Beatty and Richard Belzer. I am not clear on the show's relationship to LAW & ORDER, but characters kept crossing over for guest spots between the two. One character, Belzer's quirky Munch, eventually moved over to the L& O spin off, "Special Victims Unit." HOMICICDE was beautifully shot in one of the nation's grittiest, most colorful and crime-ridden cities, and the characters were for the most part low-key and believable within the limitations of the scripts, which unfortunately were never up to L&O quality. Worth a watch when you can't find an L&O or NYPD BLUE episode on.

When I watched the first episode I was shocked at all of the heavy-hitters on the screen. All of them went on to distinguished television careers.

The filmmakers got the casting right, the location right but they failed when it came to the writers. If you want to see authentic inner city style writing then you have to watch The Wire.

Homicide was written by intellectuals. Often there were funny or incisive lines. But the stories were more philosophical than dramatic. I'm only on the third episode and I'm already having to fast forward through multiple scenes.

I don't understand how this series is rated so highly. Maybe it was good in its day. But not now.