Customer Reviews

Homicide Life on the Street - The Complete Season 6

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The penultimate season of "Homicide" finds Howard, Brodie, and Cox out of the picture with Gharty, Falsone, and Ballard joining the detectives. In my opinion, this is one of the best seasons of the show, featuring the oft-acclaimed "The Subway" episode and the conclusion to the Luther Mahoney arc that began in Season Four.

Episodes include:

Blood Ties, I, II, & III
Birthday
Baby, it's You (Part II; Part I is a "Law & Order" episode)
Saigon Rose
The Subway (with director's commentary)
All is Bright
Closet Cases
Sins of the Father
Shaggy Dog, City Goat
Something Sacred I & II
Lies & Other Truths
Pit Bull Sessions
Mercy
Abduction
Full Court Press
Strangled, Not Stirred
Secrets
Finnegan's Wake
Fallen Hero's I & II

This is a standout season, and with only one additional release to look forward to, this is the best way to remember a television show which will stand as a cultural icon for years to come.
Also on the release is "Anatomy of Homicide: A Life on the Street," a PBS documentary narrated by Richard Belzer that offers a great look into the making of the show. Though it was originally aired to coincide with Season Seven, this is a welcome addition to the set.
And, for those who are disappointed that the music listings are no longer a "special feature," visit http://members.aol.com/hlots98/episodes.html as it contains an episode-by-episode list of all songs.

While it's difficult to call Homicide: The Complete Sixth Season the best season of this Peabody Award winning series, it comes pretty darn close with a three episode story arc that ranks among the best and the classic episode The Subway featuring guest star Vincent D'Onofrio (Men in Black, Law and Order). Kellerman (Reed Diamond) exits this season amid allegations that his killing of a prominent drug lord wasn't "clean" and, ultimately, his colleagues turn away from him including his partner Lewis (Clark Johnson). The bloody shoot out of the grand finale ends the sixth season with a bang. While we once again have the departures of many cast members (including the superb Andre Braugher and Michelle Forbes) at the conclusion of this season, we also have many new and interesting characters introduced.

Like the previous sets, the sixth season looks very good on DVD. Keep in mind that this series was shot on 16 mm film and that the grainy look of the series was, indeed, intended. That said, A&E have done a marvelous job of transferring this classic series last great season to DVD. The sound has solid presence as well.

We get the full length PBS documentary Anatomy of a Homicide which highlights the making of the classic episode The Subway. One of the best stand-alone episodes the series produced, we get behind-the-scenes footage of the shooting, interviews with cast and crew members and a discussion of how the episode was structured. It's one of the best extras that A&E has licensed for this series.

There's a single commentary track but it's a great one; we get feedback from both director Gary Fleder and writer James Yoshimura on The Subway. Sure, there could have been more commentary tracks but what's provided (along with the documentary) makes this an outstanding set. I would have liked to have a commentary on the final episode of season six but clearly A&E stretched its marketing budget as far as it could to provide interesting extras for this season.

The last great and essential season of the series has two deluxe extras in the form of the full length documentary and commentary track on The Subway. The image and sound quality are truly exceptional given the source material and the packaging shows the great care A&E has shown on previous sets.

I just want to say, don't worry about extras and widescreen this and that. Homicide was a tv series that once aired and now does not. Changes were made at the time to scripts and scenes etc. due to pressure from the network and cast changes - but what it all boiled down to was what aired, and those of us buying these dvd sets loved it and still do love it. All I want from the season 6 dvd is what I wanted and got from the first five: The episodes, as they aired, in the proper order. A commentary here and there is just a bonus. The first four seasons were best. Season five was fantastic, and the last season wasn't quite as good but was still the best show on television. Why fret over deleted scenes and widescreen? This collection will have the complete season six, that's what's important.

Homicide's sixth season is it's last great year before it slipped. Although the cracks begin to show in the armor during this season, the storytelling is still superb and the acting and characterizations, for the most part, are still at the top of their game. Unfortunately, there are a few exceptions that intrude upon this excellent ensemble cast.

Homicide veterans Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss return from a rotation in Robbery to see fresh squad members Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne), Stew Gharty (Peter Gerety) and Paul Falsone (Jon Seda), replacing the now departed Sgt. Kay Howard and Brodie. Gharty and Falsone are no strangers to the series, but Ballard is a completely new face. Pembleton knows this all too well and he has a hard time adjusting to the new blood when he is forced to work with Ballard and Gharty on a murder connected to a prominent Baltimore businessman ("Blood Ties.")

Meanwhile, Lewis and Kellerman are now at odds over the shooting of Luther Mahoney from the previous season and are no longer partners. Dark circumstances force them together again when a mysterious stalker begins taking shots at them as payback for Mahoney's death. They soon learn that Luther has a sister, Georgia Rae, who is unwilling to forgive Kellerman, Lewis and Terri Stivers for the deed. Rookie Falsone becomes suspicious of the shooting and squares off with Kellerman as he digs for the truth. The Mahoney ark lasts the entire season and culminates in an uncharacteristic, bloody squad room shoot-out in the explosive two-part finale, "Fallen Heroes." The massacre puts the Homicide unit at war with the Mahoney cartel, The end result being the serious injury of Bayliss and the departures of Pembleton and Kellerman from the unit. We also see M.E. Juliana Cox leave the series ("Lies and Other Truths") when she refuses to go along with a city cover-up of a car collision involving a drunk driver. Cox is replaced by Stivers (Toni Lewis) in Homicide as the only strong female left in the cast.

Some of our favorite characters undergo changes this year that show their inner complexities. Kellerman slowly transforms from an idealistic good cop to an angry, alcoholic renegade obsessed with bringing down Georgia Rae Mahoney. Bayliss struggles with his own sexual identity ("Closet Cases") and Pembleton deals with the birth of his second child ("Birthday.") But while these and other strong characters Munch and Giardello drive the series, it's tougher to like the new characters. Gharty seems to have changed from his previous wormy, cowardly ways with little explanation, and Ballard seems shallow and flaky when compared to other strong female characters like Kay Howard and Megan Russert. Falsone is the hardest one to take and is the least favorite character of the fans by far. He comes off as an egomaniacal, over-inflated punk who, unlike Pembleton, can't back up his arrogance with real substance. Despite these lesser characters, the better players carry the show through it's last great season and stand-out stories like "The Subway," "Something Sacred," and "Full Court Press," prove that the writers haven't lost their edge.

This box set contains the best special feature so far; the PBS full-length documentary, "Anatomy of a Homicide." This documentary goes behind the scenes and shows us the filming of the gripping episode, "The Subway." We also have actor and character biographies and two director's commentaries. "The Subway," is placed out of production order and even though it is largely a self-contained episode, it's still disappointing. We also have part two of another crossover with Law & Order, though this effort isn't nearly as good as the fourth season story. I commend A&E for again including the "previouslies," though I'm disappointed to see the music lists are again not included. Despite these flaws, its still a great package and well worth the price.

Episode List:

*Blood Ties 1 (Guest star James Earl Jones)
*Blood Ties 2
*Blood Ties 3
*The Subway (Guest star Vincent D'Onofrio)
*Baby, It's You (Guest stars Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston of Law & Order)
*Birthday
*Saigon Rose
*All is Bright
*Closet Cases (Guest star Peter Gallagher)
*Sins of the Father
*Shaggy Dog, City Goat (Guest star Steve Allen)
*Something Sacred 1
*Something Sacred 2
*Lies and Other Truths (Guest star John Glover)
*Pit Bull Sessions
*Mercy (Guest star Alfre Woodard)
*Abduction
*Full Court Press
*Strangled, Not Stirred
*Secrets
*Finnegan's Wake (Guest star Charles Durning)
*Fallen heroes 1
*Fallen heroes 2

Personally, as a HUGE fan of Homicide: Life on the Street, I feel that the penultimate season was the least pleasurable season besides the final season, 7. Despite the intention of Homicide to focus on an ensemble of homicide detectives, it was clear in seasons 1-5 that Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss were the primary focus. That focus is not so prominent in season 6. It seems that a large focus is on former auto theft cop turned homicide detective Paul Falsone. (Let's go back and say that the 'cliffhanger' to the previous season, 5, with the whole 'rotating shift' nonsense was ludicrous) I think Jon Seda was not up to the caliber of acting we were used to with the uncanny Andre Braugher or menacing Yaphet Kotto.
Maybe it is just tough for this Homicide fan to glom onto the new crew of pretty boy Paul, sexy Laura Ballard and the judgemental Stu Gharrty (can we get a spell check on this?).
But, all said and done, episodes as brilliant as Subway stand out and still made Homicide one of the best shows on tv at the time!!!!

The best thing about this DVD is all the cool stuff it has on the episode "Subway" -- and the episode itself. Vincent D'Onofrio is superb, and the regular "Homicide" cast is outstanding in this haunting, gut-wrenching tale of a man waiting to die. I love all the behind-the-scenes stuff, and my favorite moment is a short interview clip in which D'Onofrio shyly expresses how much it means to him that the writer got tears in his eyes watching the filming of a crucial scene.

Love this series...it has a different flavor than the first three. If for nothing else get it for the Subway episode.

I really enjoyed Homicide back in the 1990's when it was on NBC because of it's realistic approach,and the cast did a greate job. Munch and Pemblton were my faverate's, but liked all of the cast. I would like to see the creaters Paul Anstaiso and Berry Levinson re create Homicide in the future even if in another City. For those who really liked Homicide will also like The First 48.

My parents were impatient people, so when I asked "Why?" as a child, I often got "Because we said so!" as an answer. As a result, I have grown up hungering for thoughtful explanations, and in the case of television series, careful development. I feel that little-kid powerlessness when I am dismissed with rushed or missing background. Season 6 of "Homicide: Life on the Street" still manages to tell good stories but has a number of "Because we said so!" moments that long-time viewers will find annoying.

Certain to cause a double take is Luther Mahoney's sister. Muscled and manicured, a crown of cornrows heaped on her head and cascading down her back, the exquisite Georgia Rae (Hazelle Goodman) has arrived from the Cayman Islands to bury her brother, who died at the hands of Det. Mike Kellerman (Reed Diamond) in Season 5. The problem is that Georgia Rae resembles a villainess from a James Bond movie or a comic book superhero come to life, not the authentic characters we have come to expect on "Homicide." Her actions cement this resemblance as her spring-loaded thighs deliver crotch kicks that leave detectives--yes, plural--collapsed at her feet. We almost expect her to rip open her blouse to reveal a spandex-clad bosom announcing that Nut Crusher or Nad Knocker has arrived in town to avenge unjustified death. Why would Georgia Rae--the family accountant--leave the Caribbean to break cop balls in Baltimore? The writers answer: Because we said so!

When Georgia Rae brings a wrongful death suit against everyone involved in her brother's shooting, Det. Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) confronts her, only to be felled by a high-heeled blow to his boys. When he breaks her nose in retaliation, the higher-ups suspend him indefinitely. Why does shift commander Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) support this punishment after a criminal has assaulted one of his best detectives? Why isn't Giardello screaming for the new arrest of Georgia Rae? The writers answer: Because we said so!

Georgia Rae isn't the only new woman this season. The writers also introduce Det. Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne), a melding of Detectives Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) and Megan Russert (Isabella Hofmann), two characters written out of the series. In Ballard, the writers hope to soften some of Howard's masculine edges with a dose of Russert's wise-mother femininity. Howard's long red hair may have broadcast her gender, but her most important female assets were secured behind shirts buttoned all the way to the collar, often fastened with a man's tie, so that male colleagues could not determine the color of her bra, let alone get a glimpse of cleavage.

Newbie Ballard, however, is all twenty-something trendy, with bare arms, a cropped shirt flashing a bit of midriff, and breasts tenting shirts cut to flatter her figure. So that we don't think for a minute that Ballard is an unconventional, work-driven brainiac like Howard, we have to listen to her bemoan the ticking of her biological clock in an after-work conversation with Det. Terry Stivers (Toni Lewis). Sexuality and professional competence are not mutually exclusive, but we are not given the opportunity to watch Ballard demonstrate her skills as a detective; we are instead told that she is good during a press conference. Whereas Howard managed to keep her column black, Ballard's presence in homicide has chased red off the entire board, so much to the delight of Giardello that he hardly notices the return of Detectives Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), who have spent their off-season rotation in robbery.

If Ballard managed to wow us with her superior insight into the minds of murderers, we might forgive the writers foisting a Howard/Russert replacement on us, but Ballard is no great detective. She is soft with an AIDS patient who killed the man who infected her. She and her partner let two drug-addled hillbillies outwit them, and when a priest is beaten, bound, and knifed to death, Ballard is convinced that the best suspects are two scared 16-year-old refugees from Guatemala. Although Pembleton notes during the investigation that the murderer must be "a man with ice water in his veins"--a characteristic neither boy has--they remain Ballard's best suspects for two very long episodes. So why should we accept that she is a great detective? The writers answer: Because we said so!

Dr. Julianna Cox (Michelle Forbes), Maryland's chief medical examiner, also behaves in a manner that suits the plot, not the character. Despite her youth, exhausting social life, and penchant for leaving the big-city lab she supervises to do grunt work better left to subordinates, we buy that Dr. Cox is in charge. We are not surprised when she wins a national award for her work, and when her older male colleagues are swapping stories to determine who has solved the most difficult case, we expect that she will one-up them all with her tale of a leaper who was shot during his plummet from the roof, her analysis determining whether suicide or murder had occurred.

So we are perplexed when the confident, composed Dr. Cox behaves like a new-hire novice during the autopsy of a road-rage victim. A State of Maryland employee has run a couple off the interstate, killing the husband and paralyzing the wife. In an effort to minimize the inevitable multi-million-dollar settlement, the Director of Health asks Dr. Cox to fudge a toxicology number, a number which even Dr. Cox admits that death might have altered. As anyone who has watched Lt. Giardello knows, those in charge must be willing to compromise and barter favors as they meet responsibilities and honor loyalties. But Dr. Cox maintains an idealism not suited for someone at her professional level and refuses to change the blood alcohol level. Her insubordination results in her firing, leaving the audience to ask, Why would the accomplished Dr. Cox behave like a newbie who has not yet lost her professional naiveté? The writers answer: Because we said so!

Now if Dr. Cox was trying to escape a life and job that no longer made her happy, we were not given clues to recognize the self-sabotage. We needed to see a little hurt when Kellerman gave her the cold shoulder or when she found Bayliss lacking as a boyfriend, a little fear when she admitted frequent HIV testing.

The men seldom fare better. We have to watch Bayliss, who has never even surreptitiously cruised a guy, explore whether he might be bi- or homosexual (for ratings, we assume, not real character development). We have to tolerate Pembleton's misjudgment of too many suspects; the most egregious is his unjustified persecution of a hospice doctor who has convinced not only his partner but also the audience that she hasn't murdered anyone. The characters who do get logical development are Kellerman, whose demonization of the Mahoney clan helps him justify his execution of Luther, and Det. Paul Falsone (Jon Seda), whose experiences as a homicide investigator inspire him to strengthen his own family ties by fighting for shared custody of his son.

The threat of cancellation from low ratings or the pull of new projects as the demise of "Homicide" loomed might have caused the writers to develop with less care. But during the many "Because we said so!" moments in Season 6, I couldn't help thinking--my arms crossed, my lip pushed out in a pout--"It's not fair!"

We really love this series. Just wonderful characters, acted perfectly. Great plots. I can't recommend it highly enough for people who like police dramas. (Husband is an officer.)