Homicide: Life on the Street

[RenOldman 0]

After watching Season 1&2 (and I am starting Season 3) of this series on DVD and was amazed by it I wondered if anybody else has/had seen this show on the board.

Homicide ran for the 7 Seasons (1993-1999) and aired a TV movie on NBC. The show was replaced with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. NBC always had problems promoting the show claiming that you can't advertise a show about cops that is based on dialogue and not car chases.

So.....does anybody have any comments on this magnificent series??

Edit: has to has/had

[RenOldman 0]

Here are some memorable lines from Homicide....

[Crosetti and Lewis in the washroom in adjacent stalls]

C: Got any toilet paper?

L: Nope.

C: Got Five ones for a five??

Bolander: It's hard to meet single woman on this job. You meet plenty of widows, but the timing just don't seem right.

Crosetti: Either it's murder, or this library has a very strict overdue policy.

Crosetti: That's the trouble with this job. Nothing to do with life.

Munch: I'm upset because every relationship I think I have is not the relationship I actually have.

Pembleton: Do you think some people work harder to be stupider than others?

Bayliss: I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes.

Bolander: The Italians are an unforgiving lot.

Giardello: I know, but we make great pasta. It balances out.

Suspect: I'm telling the truth this time! You don't believe me?

Munch: Frankly, I preferred your Jamaican story better. It had a kind of Elmore Leonard quality.

This is a very powerful line from Season 3:

Bolander [to Lt. Giardello]:Is that what you're asking, Lieutenant? To make it a murder? A murder with no murderer? A murder that can't be solved? If you order me to do it, I'll do it. Hell, my clearance rate is so low these days one more open murder isn't going to make much difference. Everyone says 'Do it for _____*', and I keep thinking that if he chose to commit suicide, what right to I have - what right does ANY of us have - to make that go away? I don't agree with what he did, but if that was his final statement, should I wipe that clear just for our peace of mind? I mean, nobody wants to admit it, but everyone knows what happened.

*I blanked the name so people do not know who it is!!

and this one: (Which I had to use a site to C&P form)

Munch: You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait until that big guy comes back. I'm probably just his secretary. I'm just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King.

Suspect: I'm telling you the truth.

Munch: I've been murder police for ten years. If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect. What is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever lie to me like I'm Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams.

[TheRuleOfThirds 0]

LOL Those are pretty good lines.

The one thing I have against Homicide is that it's the mother of a nameless rabble of crime drama shows that have hit the air since then and there doesn't seem to be any kind of end to it. Is European TV as formulaic as American TV these days? (For all I know European TV is American TV...) It seems like you've got three kind of shows on: rip-offs of Law & Order, Everybody Loves Raymond, or Survivor. Take your pick. Nothing interesting like a sitcom about nothing or one that takes place in a taxi hub or a bar or a junkyard in Watts. Nothing that takes place on a starship that boldly goes where no man has gone before. It's all the same on every station. Fox probably has the most original lineup, but they still have way too many reality shows and The O.C., even though original, is so superficial I want to invent a new way of torturing a TV show and humiliating everyone involved with it or anyone who ever liked it.

[RenOldman 0]

Even though Homicide came out after L&O it is not a rippoff of that........

Well sort of......their is court drama in it but is not every episode (at least in Seasons 1-3). They even used some characters from L&O who said they liked working on Homicide more than L&O because it was/is not as formulaic as L&O that and the dialogue was not as dry.....

Quote:

I want to invent a new way of torturing a TV show and humiliating everyone involved with it or anyone who ever liked it.

In Canada on a Channel called SpikeTV their is a show called MXC. It was originally done in an Oriental language (I believe as the writing that pops up looks like it) but they dubbed it into (American) English. It is funny as hell they have pointless objectives and never win anything except..........bragging rights (??) but who would brag about being on that show??