"Homicide: Life on the Street" телесериалының бірінші маусымы

Season of television series

The first season of Homicide: Life on the Street, an American police procedural drama television series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between January 31 and March 31, 1993. The show was created by Paul Attanasio, with film director Barry Levinson and television writer and producer Tom Fontana serving as executive producers. Adapted from David Simon's 1991 non fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, the season followed the fictional detectives of Baltimore Police Department homicide unit and the murder cases they investigate. The show was broadcast on Wednesdays at 9 p. m. EST, with the exception of the series premiere, which aired immediately after Super Bowl XXVII. The season introduced regular cast members Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Jon Polito and Kyle Secor. Most of the primary characters were based on real life Baltimore detectives from Simon's book, including Gary D'Addario, Terrence McLarney, Harry Edgerton, Donald Worden and Jay Landsman. Many of the first season story arcs were also adapted from the book, most notably the 1988 Baltimore slaying of 11 year old Latonya Kim Wallace, which was the basis for the murder case of Adena Watson in Homicide. Another multi episode arc included Lee Tergesen as an officer who is friends with the homicide squad and later gets shot. "Night of the Dead Living," originally written as the third episode, was moved to become the season finale at the insistence of NBC executives, which led to several notable continuity errors. | ShortSummary = Detectives Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito) investigate an elderly woman named Calpurnia Church, whom they believe has murdered her husbands to collect their insurance money. Detective Stanley Bolander (Ned Beatty) pushes his reluctant partner, John Munch (Richard Belzer), to follow up on a cold case in which a woman was run over by a car. Munch eventually elicits a confession from a drunk driver who hit her. Detective Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) continues a recent lucky streak by easily solving a murder immediately after taking it on, much to the bewilderment of her partner, Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin). Eccentric loner Detective Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) is forced to partner with rookie Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), who disagrees with Pembleton's methods when he tricks a suspect (Alexander Chaplin) into confessing to murder. For his first case as primary investigator, Bayliss is assigned to the murder of 11 year old Adena Watson. | LineColor = 61563C

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Film director Barry Levinson sought to create a police drama television series based on Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, a 1991 non fiction book by David Simon based on one year he spent with Baltimore Police Department homicide detectives. In addition to the book's being set in Levinson's home city of Baltimore, the director was attracted to the realistic way Simon portrayed police work and the detectives. The book contradicted many popular myths that had been built into past police dramas: it portrayed the detectives as not always getting along with each other and told stories of criminals who were not always caught or punished. It also portrayed detectives as solving cases primarily through physical evidence, witnesses and confessions, not by investigating motives like on many other police shows. Simon also sought to dispel the popular television perception that all detectives take their cases very personally and identify with their victims: in Simon's experience, homicide cases were primarily a job to the detectives, not personal. Levinson and Tom Fontana, who had past television experience as executive producer on the drama series St. Elsewhere, hired screenwriter Paul Attanasio to adapt elements of the book into the teleplay for the first episode. Attanasio based the characters in Homicide on the detectives featured in Simon's book. Frank Pembleton was based on Detective Harry Edgerton, although the two were so different that both the producers and detectives agreed their only true similarity was that they were black. Tim Bayliss was based on the real life Baltimore detective Tom Pellegrini, the primary detective who investigated the 1988 Baltimore slaying of 11 year old Latonya Kim Wallace. The extremely personal approach Bayliss took in attempting to solve Adena Watson's murder, and his strong disappointment over failing to solve it, was based on the emotions Pellegrini went through in the Wallace case. Pellegrini provided advice to actor Kyle Secor about how to play the Bayliss role. Planned as a mid season replacement, the network ordered six episodes for their 1993 winter season, and then ordered another three after watching the completed pilot episode. The network had been consistently placing third behind their competitor networks ABC and CBS, and was suffering due to the loss of several successful shows in 1992, including The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls and Matlock, as well as the upcoming end of Cheers in 1993. NBC had tried appealing to audiences in their 20s through several comedies, but those efforts proved unsuccessful and the network decided to focus on high quality dramas like Homicide. NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield considered it the most promising new series of the season.

Paul Attanasio was billed as the creator of Homicide: Life on the Street, with Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana serving as executive producers. Wayne Ewing, who was cinematographer for Levinson's film Toys (1992), was director of photography during the first season and also directed the episode "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". Stan Warnow started out working as editor on the season premiere "Gone for Goode", but he departed before the process was done due to creative differences with Levinson. Tony Black finished the editing for that episode, but did not return for the rest of the season. Jay Rabinowitz worked as editor for the remaining episodes,

The real life detectives portrayed in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets signed waivers allowing themselves to be portrayed in the show, and some became consultants for the series. For example, the role of Frank Pembleton, although based on the African American Detective Harry Edgerton, was not race specific until Andre Braugher auditioned and was cast. This impressed Braugher, who believed fully developed roles were often written for white characters and black roles were generally two dimensional and stereotypical. This belief developed in part from Braugher's poor experience playing Detective Winston Blake on the television series Kojak, where he objected to the show's treatment of race. Ned Beatty, the best known member of cast when the series debuted, was personally approached by Levinson and Fontana to play Stanley Bolander. Although Beatty respected the two men and liked the show, he was reluctant to take the role because he believed NBC would corrupt the series and change it to a typical police show. Beatty claimed his agents and managers "pushed, dragged and hauled" him into meeting with Levinson, but Beatty ultimately accepted the role. Kyle Secor was cast as Tim Bayliss by Fontana, who remembered the actor from his role as gay AIDS patient Bret Johnson in Fontana's previous show, St. Elsewhere. In casting Al "Gee" Giardello, Levinson decided not to make the character Italian American like the real life counterpart Gary D'Addario, but rather cast Yaphet Kotto and made the character a Sicilian African American. Kotto, who turned down two feature film offers to accept the Homicide role, was extremely impressed with Levinson's choices for the character, saying, "They had the daring to make the artistic choice without prejudice of any kind. I don't think there's another network show on the air with this sort of cast composition." Levinson asked Belzer to audition for the part after hearing the comedian ranting on The Howard Stern Show, where Belzer was a frequent guest. Levinson said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his first audition with the "Gone for Goode" script. Daniel Baldwin was cast as Beau Felton, and dyed his naturally blond hair black for the role. Baldwin became one of the most vocal supporters of the show, giving many press interviews about it and defending it amid declining ratings. Baldwin declared, "Homicide is the best material I've had the chance to do." Melissa Leo was cast as Kay Howard, which was considered a particularly strong part compared to other female characters in police dramas at the time, which were usually limited to love interests or minor parts. While most cast members shadowed real life Baltimore detectives to prepare for the roles, Leo did not because, she said, "I don't like to look at the horror that's in the world." Wendy Hughes was cast as medical examiner Carol Blythe. The first season also introduced several minor characters that would make recurring appearances throughout the rest of the series. Colonel Burt Granger and Captain George Barnfather, the Baltimore Police Department bosses, were introduced in the second episode, "Ghost of a Chance". They were played, respectively, by Gerald F. Gough and Clayton LeBouef, the latter of whom later portrayed drug front worker turned informer Wendell "Orlando" Blocker in David Simon's other police drama, The Wire. Also introduced in "Ghost of a Chance" was prosecutor Ed Danvers, who was played by Željko Ivanek, a long time friend of Tom Fontana. The executive producer felt Danvers was written in a dull and simple way, but felt confident Ivanek could "make it a real character". Ami Brabson, the real life wife of actor Andre Braugher, played Mary Pembleton, the spouse of Braugher's detective counterpart character. Brabson auditioned for the role shortly after Braugher was cast in the series, and Braugher said of their on screen pairing, "We have an instant rapport that we don't have to create." Fontana was so impressed with Falco's work in Homicide that he later cast her in his HBO series Oz. Film and theater actor Moses Gunn's final performance before his death was as Risley Tucker, a murder suspect questioned for 12 hours by Pembleton and Bayliss in "Three Men and Adena". Luis Guzmán, Paul Schulze, Walt MacPherson, Bai Ling, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Steve Harris, Alexander Chaplin, N'Bushe Wright, and Baltimore filmmaker John Waters. Larry Gilliard, Jr., who later starred as drug dealer D'Angelo Barksdale in The Wire, made a brief appearance in the Homicide episode "A Dog and Pony Show". Detective Tom Pellegrini, the basis for the Tim Bayliss character, made an on screen cameo in "Ghost of a Chance" as the police officer who discovered Adena Watson's body. As the first season of Homicide progressed, NBC officials complained to the show's producers about the large number of subplots, but the producers resisted the pressure to scale them back until the second season. Despite intense advance promotion of the Homicide premiere due to a planned Super Bowl lead in, Attanasio deliberately sought to introduce the show with little fanfare, avoiding sensational gimmicks in favor of character driven plot, quirky dialogue and morbid dark humor. Homicide was noted for its deliberate lack of gun play and car chases in favor of dialogue and story. "Gone for Goode" included several storylines, and even exact bits of dialogue, adapted straight from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. One of the biggest story arcs from the first season was the murder of 11 year old Adena Watson, which is introduced in "Gone for Goode" and lasts for five episodes until "Three Men and Adena". The case was based on the murder of 11 year old Latonya Kim Wallace, which made up a major part of Simon's book. The Watson case, like the Wallace case, ultimately goes unsolved. A subplot from "Gone for Goode" and "Son of a Gun" involved the investigation into Calpurnia Church, an elderly woman suspected of murdering five husbands in order to collect their life insurance policies. This was based on the real life case of Geraldine Parrish, who was also accused of killing five husbands for insurance money, and was eventually convicted for three of their murders. Another multi episode arc involved the near fatal shooting of Patrolman Chris Thormann, which leaves the officer blind. This was also adapted from true life events in Simon's book, although Homicide writers added the twist of Steve Crosetti taking the case personally based on his close friendship with the victim. Attanasio, Levinson and Fontana strove to make Homicide more realistic than other police dramas, even in minor details. For example, Levinson specifically asked that a dead body found by detectives in "Gone for Goode" be badly decomposing and attracting flies because he felt other shows did not portray corpses in a realistic way. Some episodes, like "Ghost of a Chance", focus on murders that take place in wealthy rural settings, rather than an urban or predominantly poorer location as most police dramas did. Homicide was noted for demonstrating better than most American television police shows that murders can take place in various socioeconomic circumstances. In striving for realism, some cases in Homicide remain unsolved and murderers go free, most notably in the Adena Watson case. This theme often put the show's producers at odds with NBC executives, who wanted happier endings with more closure. Fontana said of the Watson investigation, "We never solved it because we felt that it would be a disservice to the real girl, to have this fake TV solution. Because it's not O. K. that she died, that no one took responsibility." The writers also used details from real life criminal investigations in their script. During one scene in "Ghost of a Chance", a busload of rookie police officers straight out of the academy are brought in to investigate a crime scene. The New York Police Department employed exactly the same tactic while searching for the remains of a missing girl in upstate New York in 1987. One episode written by Tom Fontana, "Three Men and Adena", took place entirely within the confines of the police interrogation room known colloquially by the detectives as "The Box". Fontana was partially inspired to write it by comments made by Barry Levinson during filming of an interrogation scene in "Gone for Goode", when Levinson said the acting by Braugher and Secor was so good, an entire episode could be filmed around it. Fontana acknowledged a certain amount of risk in producing such an unusual episode in only the fifth week of the show, but he said, "It was important for [exec producer] Barry Levinson and I to establish that we weren't going to do the same old show every week." Multiple police departments have requested copies of "Three Men and Adena" for use in training sessions due to its accurate portrayal of the intricacies of the police interrogation process. This created several notable continuity errors. For example, Officer Chris Thormann has not yet been shot and blinded in "Night of the Dead Living", and Tim Bayliss is still working on the Adena Watson case, which was already ended earlier in the season. These errors were addressed by Homicide producers by adding the words "One hot night, last September  " to the beginning of the episode, thus establishing the events of the episode took place within the correct timeline of the series, even though the episodes are shown out of order.

The inaugural season of Homicide established a realistic visual style that would remain largely intact throughout the duration of the series. Among the stylistic elements were the near constant movement with hand held Super 16 cameras to give the show a naturalistic documentary look and an editing style involving jump cuts that was unusual for television at the time. Levinson said the camera and editing style was partially inspired by the Jean Luc Godard film Breathless (1960), which he would often ask his directors to watch before filming Homicide episodes. This process came from Levinson's insistence that the footage be edited together to include the actor's best performances. While editing "Gone for Goode", Tony Black cut together two shots that did not match and began looking for a cutaway shot he could use to disguise the edit. Levinson liked the technique that came from cutting the two conflicting shots together and insisted it stay in. This technique became commonly used throughout the series, although it was toned down in future seasons at the insistence of NBC executives who found it too unconventional. The Recreation Pier Building, a Fells Point structure built in 1914 which once housed Baltimore's marine police, was used as the set of the police department station, which was the principal set for the show. The building looked so realistic that Baltimore residents would occasionally wander into it to report actual crimes. Production director Vincent Peranino created the squad room set inside the Recreation Pier Building. While most sets include a few fake walls opposite an open space for the cameras and crew, Peranino designed the entire room as if it were a real setting, including separate areas for the detectives' coffee room and the interrogation room known as "The Box". The actors began storing their actual belongings at their desks on the set, left real personal messages to each other on the bulletin boards, and got business cards with their characters' actual names for their desks. Many other scenes in Homicide were filmed primarily in the Fells Point neighborhood, including actual streets, bars and houses to create authenticity. Ned Beatty said of filming there, "The one thing you can't get on camera is, oh boy, it smells."

The theme song for Homicide: Life on the Street was composed by Lynn F. Kowal, who submitted one of several tapes sent to the producers for consideration. Homicide producers initially had trouble finding the right song, and Levinson ultimately chose Kowal's themes because, while most of the candidates too closely resembled typical television theme songs, Levinson felt Kowal's song "had that odd quality to it, drums or whatever, and it was very unusual". Music is presented in various ways throughout the first season of Homicide. Some songs are played on radios that play in the homicide squad room, like "Lay Down My Life" by Carole King, "Texas Slide" by Jean Jacques Milteau, "N. Y. C (Can You Believe This City?)" by Charles & Eddie, "Little Boy Blues" and "Break Up" by Gary Fitzgerald, and "Tropic Call" by Mitchell Coodley and Andrew Snitzer, all of which are featured in "Night of the Dead Living". Other songs are more integrated into the show itself, like "Hazy Shade of Blue", a Tor Hyams song that plays while the police raid several neighborhood homes in search of clues during "Ghost of a Chance", and the hymn "The Sweet By and By", which is sung at a church during Adena Watson's funeral in that same episode. Several other songs are featured in episodes throughout the first season, including "Elephant Walk" by The Kings, "The Beat Goes On" by Sonny Bono, "Going' Around in Circles" by Jules Taub, "Telephone Blues" by Sam Ling and George Smith, and "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by Freddie Perren and Christine Yarian.

Reviews were consistently positive from the beginning of the series. The Washington Post television critic Tom Shales called Homicide "the least compromised and the most intense" drama show on television, adding, "In every department, the level of excellence has been awesome." Shales complimented it for portraying the tension of a homicide squad without resorting to gratuitous violence. Lon Grahnke of the Chicago Sun Times called it "the season's best new series of any genre", Paul Lomartire of The Palm Beach Post called it "the best new drama to come along on any network since NBC canceled Shannon's Deal". Newsday critic Marvin Kitman called Homicide "an old fashioned NBC signature show" remnisicent of the network during the time of Grant Tinker and Brandon Tartikoff. Associated Press writer Scott Williams praised the series as unique: "It had superb writing, a gifted cast that created complex, fully realized characters, a unique visual style, and stories of compelling power and intensity." Knight Ridder Newspapers television writer Mike Duffy praised what he called the show's witty writing, stylish visuals and superb acting, and declared it the best police drama since Hill Street Blues. and The Buffalo News writer Alan Pergament ranked it among the ten best television shows of 1993. Eric Kohanik of The Hamilton Spectator called it "the best new series of the midseason", and praised it for not resorting to "silly car chases [and] blazing guns". Not all reviews were positive. James Endrst, television columnist for The Hartford Courant, felt the series was over hyped and said "seen it, done it, been there before" of the filming techniques otherwise being praised as cutting edge. The New York Times writer John O'Connor praised the acting and originality of the series, which he called "simultaneously funny and harrowing". He also said Homicide occasionally gratuitously emphasized style over substance in an attempt to be original, "[as if] trying to signal, 'See how much better we are than ordinary television.'" "Three Men and Adena" received especially positive reviews and has been described as one of the "classic episodes" of Homicide: Life on the Street. It ranked number 74 in an Entertainment Weekly list of the 100 greatest television moments, and number 15 among the top television moments from the 1990s. Entertainment Weekly writer Bruce Fretts said the episode was "one of the most powerful prime time hours ever" "Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million household viewers, which was largest viewership of the first season, and marked the best ratings performance of a preview or premiere following a Super Bowl since The Wonder Years in 1988. Nevertheless, NBC considered it a disappointing performance based on the amount of advertising and press coverage the episode received. Barry Levinson said the scheduling was a serious detriment to Homicide which, like many other drama series at the time, was designed for a 10 p. m. time slot. Tom Fontana also believed Homicide suffered in the ratings because it aired between Unsolved Mysteries and Law & Order, which he believed was too many police dramas for one night: "I never understood the concept of three hours of people in handcuffs as a way to entice an audience." During the first week of March, the network started airing a television commercial with Barry Levinson making a direct appeal to viewers to watch the show, in which he said: but NBC executives asked for several refinements – including fewer episode subplots and less camera movements and jump cuts – before approving a second season. Tom Fontana said of the changes to the series, "We were experimenting with our first nine episodes. Whenever you try something new, you tend to err on the side of breaking ground. But we'd rather have more people watching, so the colors and lighting are slightly brighter, and the camera movements are not as jarring." After winning his Emmy, Fontana made an emotional acceptance speech about the need to save the hour long television drama, in which he said: "It's not the fault of the American public that the drama is in trouble. It's us: the writers, producers, the network executives, the studio money crunchers. We have to figure out a way to reignite the imagination of the American people." and Gwen Verdon was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series her guest performance in "Ghost of a Chance" as Jessie Doohan, an unhappily married woman accused of killing her husband of 60 years. That same year, Verdon was also nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance in the series Dream On. Paul Attanasio was nominated for the same award his "Gone for Goode" script. Homicide was nominated for best drama series at the American Television Awards, a new awards show established in 1993 by the producers of the American Music Awards. The American Television Awards differed from the Emmys in that nominees were determined by reporters and critics rather than members of the television industry. Homicide was defeated by I'll Fly Away, an NBC drama series that was canceled in 1993.

The first and second seasons of Homicide were released together in a four DVD box set "Homicide: Life on the Street: The Complete Seasons 1&2", which was released by A&E Home Entertainment/NBC Entertainment on May 27, 2003. The set included an audio commentary by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana for the "Gone for Goode" episode, as well as a collection of the commercials that advertised the episode during the Super Bowl.