Customer Reviews

Homicide The Complete Series Seasons 1-7 DVD SET

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Homicide: Life on the Street is not only the greatest cop drama of the 90's, it's one of the best ever. It's authentic settings, great acting, and great storylines were what made it so great. Now you can relive the entire story through this DVD.

Homicide did go through a lot of cast changes but those who stuck around really grew. If you look at Bayliss in the first season and then look in the seventh season, there's a big change in his character and that showed that the writers could show great character development. It was a shame though that Pembleton left after season six because I doubt anyone was sick of his character. He was after all the guy who nailed the murderer of Jake the Dog back in season 2. Lewis, Munch, and Lt. Al Giardello also see the show through, which was more cast than NYPD or Law & Order had by their 7th seasons. It's great to see Munch still on Law & Order: SVU after playing him for 12 years.

As for by all the DVDs together, you don't get anything extra, but it is cheaper than buying them separately. The special features decrease in quality as the season's progress, but they are still pretty good. My one problem is that the episodes from Law & Order that crossed over with Homicide were not included. With that said this set is great and since it is no longer in syndication this is the only way to enjoy the series from start to finish.

I almost ordered this collection, but then noticed another set (also through Amazon, linked below) that had a bonus disk. Disk 35 includes the three "Law & Order" crossover episodes, and "Homicide: The Movie", which ties up many loose ends.

Without the bonus disk, this collection isn't truly complete, and thus rated only 4 stars. The Homicide 35-disk megaset is worth the extra bucks, and an extra star.

(PS: A special thanks to Mr. Bey (Riverside, CT United States), whose review of this set tipped me off about the missing crossover episodes and led me to search out the megaset I now own and enjoy)

EDIT: I purcahsed the Megaset in July 2007 for $112.42. Now the price has jumped to $340 +. It's a good show, but I doubt that I would have paid anything over $200.00.

From the very beginning, Homicide - Life On The Street was just flat out better than 97% of what's available on TV, including cable. The impetus, of course, was Barry Levinson, a truly brilliant director with numerous great films to his credit. (His overriding love of Baltimore's gritty reality contributed enormously.) Levinson's approach set the tone for everything that happened later, a sensibility grounded in film, not TV, and ensemble acting, not formulaic story development. Where Law & Order, as good as it is, is almost mechanistic in its style, with Homicide one always has the wonderful sense that anything might happen, indeed, that stories might be unresolved, or resolved in an unsatisfactory manner, as is the case in real life.

Unusual camera work, and especially the choppy editing - which frequently featured multiple takes of the same scene - gave the show a hard-edged, urban appeal totally in keeping with Baltimore - the show's non-credited star. (A welcome and refreshing change from the slick, smooth, and empty style of typical Hollywood pap.) The writing was always excellent, terrific dialogue, fresh plot twists, well-drawn characters that evolved right before your eyes. Homicide also featured a long parade of wonderful actors moving in and out of the ensemble, and terrific cameos as well; most notably Lily Tomlin whose performance in the episode called "The Hat" is perfection itself.

Melissa Leo, Clark Johnson, and Max Perlich deserve special note for great work developing marvelously quirky characters, but the weight of the show rests squarely on the shoulders of Andre Braugher as Frank Pembleton and Yaphet Koto as Al Giardello. Both men created such fully realized characters that everything they did, however improbable, was believable. Braugher's Pembleton is as complex and interesting as any fictional figure you might ever find, and Koto as Giardello exudes male dignity, power, and decency in a way that is almost unknown in the wasteland of television, a landscape populated by imbecilic male role models. About Belzer's Munch, what can one say except that Belzer may be the only person in show business history to spend an entire career playing one role, no matter which show he appears in. But then, Belzer is Munch, so does it really qualify as acting at all?

I've acquired these in bits and pieces, now that the complete collection is available, I wish I'd waited; I would have saved a lot of money. Highly recommended, this is TV at its very best, when it's so good that it's indistinguishable from film.

For only $64.99 (as of mid-March 2010) you can buy the more complete (35 disks, with Law and Order cross-over episodes and film) version: Homicide: Life on the Street - The Complete Series (repackaged)

I love this show, but I am hearing impaired and there are NO closed captions! For $270 you would think they could think of the hearing impaired!

I agree with others that this was a great TV series, but, it's been gone a long time, and charging $350 for 7 seasons in todays market is just gouging, I've seen it all and loved it but would never buy at this price. $30 per season after 5 years of being off the air (and, it's been 7) is all I will ever pay. Good show, bad price.

I am a longtime fan of Homicide and thought I had seen them all. But, I was pleasantly surprised that there were quite a few episodes that I had missed. Was glued to the set every spare moment and burned right through all of them. With the exception of the final season when it was clear the Pembleton character was too important to do without, it was excellent from start to finish.

Second only to THE WIRE. This is the best cop drama in the history of television. Unlike all the other NYPD Blues and Law and Orders out there, (thankfully) this show resists pat moralizing and easy answers. Great writing, great acting. My only complaint is the tacky directing and editing at times, but what are you gonna do --it's from primetime tv in the early 90's. Like The Wire, this show isn't going to hold your hand through the story or characters. It takes attention, thought, and patience to experience its fullest capacities. But for those of us who enjoy difficult and dynamic yet rewarding art in all mediums, shows like Homicide and The Wire come about as close as we're going to find on modern television programming.

Great series. Too bad the crossover shows with Law and Order and the TV movie aren't included here as they double the price of the set if included.

Homicide: Life on the Street is my favorite show of all time. It's a 5-star show for sure, and I could go on and on about its brilliance. But the reason I'm writing this review is to warn potential customers: The Law & Order crossover episodes were NOT include in the single-season releases, nor was Homicide: The Movie, the follow-up tv movie that wrapped up the remaining loose ends. Though the L&O episodes are the worst of the series (they were really just desperate attempts to get more viewers on board, though Jerry Orbach and Richard Belzer sparred well with each other), it's frustrating to ONLY have part II of three 2-parters. The issue had to do with securing rights to the episodes, which they didn't have when these dvds came out. They DID secure the rights in time for the box set of Homicide, so you would be much better served by getting that set (the one that looks like a little filing cabinet).*

(*Footnote: When that came out, I ended up buying it and selling off my single-seasons through ebay. I was fortunate to have broken even, but I still haven't been able to sell the 7th season, since the existence of the box set made these individual seasons moot.)