CS Weekly Archive > DVD of the Day > 11/22/06

The Death of the Status Quo

by jason davis

Premiering after immediately after Super Bowl XXVII and surviving despite dire ratings trouble for the next seven years, Homicide: Life on the Streets dramatized journalist David Simon's experiences with the Baltimore Homicide Division with a verisimilitude unlikely to be equaled on commercial television, leaving a critically acclaimed, but too often overlooked mark on the history of the medium.

Homicide: Life on the Street (The Complete Series Megaset)

Raphael Alvarez, Randall Anderson, Kevin Arkadie, Paul Attanasio, Noel Behn, Jack Behr, Jeanne Blake, Lee Blessing, Henry Bromell, Les Carter, Sara B. Charno, Michael S. Chernuchin, T.J. English, Anya Epstein, Philip B. Epstein, Tom Fontana, Jean Gennis, Edward Gold, Ron Goldstein, Sharon Guskin, Lois Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Christopher Kyle, Eugene Lee, D. Maria Legaspi, Joy Lusco, Bonnie Mark, Julie Martin, Linda McGibney, David Mills, Phyllis Murphy, Eric Overmyer, Frank Pugliese, Willie Reale, Lloyd Rose, David Rupel, Debbie Sarjeant, Ayelet Sela, David Simon, Susan Sisko, Jane Smiley, Trish Soodik, Roger Turrentine, Gay Walch, Lyle Weldon, Michael Whaley, Darryl LaMont Wharton, Emily Whitesell, Sean Whitesell, Matthew Witten, James Yoshimura, Jason Yoshimura, and Jorge Zamacona
Created by Paul Attanasio
Based on the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon

After wrangling an assignment to Homicide, Detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) discovers that a job investigating murders day in and day out is a soul-destroying journey into the depths of human depravity and bureaucratic tedium. Under the command of his shift commander, the authority-bucking Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto]), Bayliss joins the cocky Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), morose Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty), acerbic John Munch (Richard Belzer), pedantic Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito), laid-back Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin), uptight Kay Howard (Melissa Leo), and relaxed Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) investigating everything from domestic disputes turned fatal to the murder of a police dog, wrestling the truth out from tangled nests of lies. Eschewing the traditional values of dramatic television, the series dispensed with gunfights and car chases in favor of an introspective meditation on the men and women who risk their very humanity in pursuit of the monsters that spill human blood.

Though murder cases come and go, their weight remains with every member of the series' ensemble. Graphically represented by the squad room's dry erase board -- where open cases remain in red, while black ink indicates closure -- the cases are ever-present on the board and in the eyes of the team. Though a procedural series at first glance, Homicide ascribes neither to Law & Order's story-based form or narrative, nor to the more soap operatic structure of contemporaries like NYPD Blue. The numerous ongoing investigations instead form a backdrop for intense character studies set against the relentless spiritual erosion wrought by murder after murder. None of the characters start the series with exemplary personal lives, but across the seasons, the audience witnesses the toll of the work first hand. As the viewpoint character offered in the pilot (and one of the few characters to remain throughout the run of the series), Tim Bayliss offers the clearest account with his journey from straight-laced enthusiasm to a world-weary metaphysical nomad desperately seeking something to believe in by series' end.

That the character arcs are almost transparent as you watch the series is a tribute the showrunner Tom Fontana and his writers. Like magicians accomplished at sleight of hand, the arcs vanish beneath the quirky everyday interactions of the cops. Conversation is the heart of the series, and chatter both banal and profound fills each hour as Munch meditates on the futility of relationships or Pembleton pontificates on the intricacies of the criminal mind. The poetry of the language ebbs and flows, driving the story forward with a natural ease, and the sense of familiarity it lends the characters obscures the evolution of their arcs much like an intimate familiarity dulls a person's ability to perceive subtle shifts in the persona of a close friend over time. The viewer becomes so used to the characters that the writers are able to use that familiarity as a lever for the creation of emotion, especially when the name of a squad member finds its way into red ink on the white board. After seven years of mediocre ratings and uncertain renewals and with only four original cast members remaining in a sea of new faces (some intended to make the series more aesthetically appealing to the elusive massesHomicide left the air with the same offbeat style with which it had arrived. More a character study than a crime drama, the series set the bar for exploration into the human condition by transposing life with death and asking a handful of dysfunctional cops, "Why?"

- Homicide: Life Everlasting
- Three episodes of Law & Order
- Commentary by Henry Bromell (writer/producer), Anya Epstein (writer), Gary Fleder (director), Tom Fontana (writer/producer), Clark Johnson (actor/director), Barry Levinson (producer/director), Julie Martin (writer/producer), Eric Overmeyer (writer), and James Yoshimura (writer/producer)
- "Homicide: Life at the Start -- An Interview with Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana"
- "To Catch a Killer: Homicide Detectives" episode of A&E's American Justice
- Superbowl XXVII commercials for season one premiere
- Homicide: Life in Season 3 -- An Interview with Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana, Henry Bromell, David Simon, and James Yoshimura
- About "the Board"
- Homicide: Life in Season 4: An Interview With Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana, Henry Bromell, David Simon, and James Yoshimura
- "Inside Homicide: An Interview with David Simon and James Yoshimura"
- Feature-length documentary Anatomy of a Homicide
- Live panel discussion with Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson, James Yoshimura, and David Simon
- Barry Levinson's acceptance speech for the 2004 Video Software Dealers Association Career Achievement Awards
- Cast biographies
- Music listings

A&E initially released the seven seasons of Homicide in six boxed sets, each loaded with supplemental material. Those initial extras are all accounted for and make for a very writer-friendly assortment. Commentaries highlight various writer/director combinations, with a lot of attention lavished on the ways in which the series deviated from genre norms. Executive producers Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana tackle the pilot, explaining their take on David Simon's book, while Fontana returns alongside members of his writing staff to reveal the behind-the-scenes machinations that made season seven the series' swansong. On-camera interviews abound, with the best ones, those that accompany seasons three and four, recounting the year from the producers' perspective as they take the networks notes into consideration, deal with the ever-changing roster of stars, and struggle to maintain the show's aesthetic despite pressure to be more mainstream. The apotheosis of this behind-the-scenes peak is Anatomy of a Homicide, a documentary written and directed by Theodore Bogosian (Oz), which follows writer/producer James Yoshimura from the conception of the Emmy-nominated episode "The Subway" through to the episode's broadcast. The viewer is afforded an excellent overview of the process as the writer struggles with notes, has difficulty casting a key guest role (which eventually went to Vincent D'Onofrio, who would be later seen in Law & Order: Criminal Intent), and works with director Gary Fleder to bring his script to the screen. An episode of A&E American Justice focusing on the job of homicide detective highlights the accuracy inherent in the series. (Note: Included for the first time in this set, but unavailable for review, are the three crossover episodes of Law & Order and Homicide: Life Everlasting, the Movie of the Week that concluded the series.)

Critically acclaimed but never a ratings success, Homicide: Life on the Street remains a little-known treasure in the vast canon of American network television. With characters that pop off the screen, dialogue that crackles with life, and stories that aim for the soul, the series aimed high and rarely missed the target.

Homicide: Life on the Street (The Complete Series Megaset)
A&E Home Entertainment
Not rated; 5,854 min.
$299.95

Buy it now

Jason Davis is the DVD Manager for CS Weekly, a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and has written for Cinescape.com, MSN.com, and created the TV series Studio 13, which ran on Lorne Michaels' Burly TV network. He lives in the small space left over by his ever-expanding library of books, movies, and music.

Homicide: Life on the Street (The Complete Series Megaset) courtesy A&E Home Entertainment

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