Amazon.com reviews for
"Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993) More at IMDbPro »

Homicide Life on the Street: The Beginning (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: The edgy, intense Homicide: Life on the Street earned its reputation as the best show on TV from the very beginning. In the pilot episode, "Gone for Goode," rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) walks into the squad room of Baltimore's elite and smack into his first case, the murder of 11-year-old girl Adina Watson, a crime that will haunt Bayliss throughout the series. Oscar-winning director and series executive producer Barry Levinson helms this episode himself, establishing the nervous, energetic camera work, the bickering camaraderie of the homicide squad, and the meticulous attention to police detail that defined the series. He won an Emmy for his efforts. The third season episode "Every Mother's Son" guest stars Sean Nelson (Fresh) as a cold juvenile killer who couldn't care less that he murdered an innocent boy, while the mothers of victim and killer unknowingly meet in the station waiting room. The final episode in the set, "A Doll's Eye" from the fourth season, is a quiet, introspective look at the parents of a boy left brain-dead by a stray bullet who are dealing with their grief while under pressure to make a decision that could save another child through the organ donor program. Mandy Patinkin make an uncredited cameo as his Chicago Hope doctor. This set lacks the coherent thread that pulled the episodes together on a weekly basis, but it displays the series' range like a candy sampler, and the uniformly excellent episodes are worth seeing under any circumstance. --Sean Axmaker

Homicide Life on the Street: Subway (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: "The Subway" became the most celebrated episode of the sixth season of Homicide: Life on the Street. A showcase for Andre Braugher's Frank Pembleton, the squad's tetchy, intense, brilliant detective, it takes place almost entirely in the subway and focuses on the relationship between Pembleton and the dying victim of a gruesome subway platform accident (guest star Vincent D'Onofrio), who's not expected to live out the hour. It garnered lavish praise from TV critics across the U.S., earned two Emmy nominations (including one for D'Onofrio), and won the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting. Little did documentary director Theodore Bogosian know what was in store when he began his made-for-public TV special Anatomy of a Homicide, a detailed look at the creation of the episode from idea through script and production to broadcast. You get it all: script conferences, location scouting, special-effects challenges (how do you portray a man convincingly trapped by a tram and twisted like taffy?), the clip from the HBO series Taxicab Confessions that inspired the story, and a privileged look at network politics. It's an inspired pairing for the video debut of the series, a fine introduction for new viewers, and the equivalent of a coffee-table video album for the faithful. --Sean Axmaker