Product Details

• Actors: Clark Johnson
• Directors: Clark Johnson, Jace Alexander, Joe Berlinger, Lee Bonner, Martin Campbell
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 2
• Studio: Vidmark / Trimark
• VHS Release Date: February 22, 2000
• Run Time: 162 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00003BDXO
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,529 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Television that transcends the medium, June 12, 2000

By	"sierraskibum" (Reno, Nevada) - See all my reviews

I don't watch many shows on television. I find most network offerings to be nearly insulting in their simplicity and slavish adherence to formula, and when I hear any TV show praised to the skies, I assume that's just the product of lowered expectations on the part of someone who's taken in too much canned laughter and cliched drama.

For years I heard Homicide was worth watching but I put it on the back burner. I figured, at best, it would be an NYPD Blue without all the embarrasingly soap-opera-esque personal tragedies and stilted, robotic dialogue. But now that I've seen Homicide in reruns, my ideas of what a television series can be has changed. Homicide is everything that great drama is -- gripping, moving, funny, terrifying, heatbreaking, thrilling, and profoundly and insightfully human. The depth of the characters and the storylines draw the viewer in to a world as fully-fleshed and compelling as our own. Great writing, great acting, great camera work, great visual montages, great music (I will never hear "Beautiful Way," already a favorite song before I saw the Homicide movie, without thinking of Gee . . .) -- I could pile on the superlatives forever but you probably get the point.

Watch as much of this series as you can. Television doesn't get any better.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Else Like It On TV Or The Big Screen!, July 17, 2002

By	Deanne (California) - See all my reviews

Anyone that has ever seen this top quality crime drama would agree that there has never been anything else like HOMICIDE on television or the big screen!

This show, in reruns, is as powerful, moving, thought provoking, and at times humorous, as it was during its first run on NBC during the 90's.

EVERY...and I do mean EVERY character leaps off the page with realism and charisma, thanks in part to those who put pen to paper and wrote the lines, and also to the amazing actor who breathed life into the well written scripts.

The early shows are by far the best! And that you will see on this video. Pembelton and Balis, Andre Braugher and Kyle Secor, were televisions definitive dynamic duo. I believe that they, and the other cast members, set a standard for ensemble casts that will never be beat. (A few of the cast members that joined the show towards the end of its run were not as powerful as the original actors, but that didn't stop the show from delivering quality episodes.)

Others have suggested NBC release all of the episodes on DVD and I agree! This was truly MUST SEE TV and for what ever reason the network couldn't see it. (This show is timeless and I would love to see it resurrected, perhaps on cable TV! Are you listening HBO?)

HOMICIDE - Life On The Street is without a doubt is the best television show to date! Kudos to all responsible for bridging it to life, to Court TV for airing it in reruns, and to Amazon.com for bring the series to its fan via VHS and DVD!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The crash-course on Homicide: Life on the Street, June 21, 2003

By	N. Hawkins "whereishawkins" (Chicago) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Typically if I want to get a friend's reaction to my favorite drama ever, I'll have them sit down and watch these three episodes with me. They represent some of the finest acting and cinematography I've seen in quite some time.

1) The Pilot: "Gone for Goode" - It's Tim Bayliss' (Kyle Secor) first day on the Homicide Unit commanded by Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) and the introduction to the cast of characters begins: John Munch (Richard Belzer), the cynical jaded but dedicated cop partnered with the "close to retirement" Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty), Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) is partnered with Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito) and Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) is partnered with Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin). The wildcard in the unit is Frank Pembleton, the unit's best detective who likes to work alone. Lewis and Crosetti investigate a shooting that might lead to solving 5 more murders (and making them look like heros), Munch is coerced into opening up an accidental death that Bolander thinks was a murder. And Bayliss gets paired up with Pembleton during a murder of an older guy in a hotel and learns firsthand that what he's taught in the classroom doesn't hold up in the real world.

Some famous lines:
Bolander: "She was murdered John, you have to speak for her"
--
Howard: "Homicide? We work for God"
--
Munch: "I've been murder police for ten years. If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect."
--
Crosetti: "That's the problem with this job. It's got nothin' to do with life."

2) "Every Mother's Son" - Bayliss and Pembleton investigate the murder of a 14 year old boy at a bowling alley to find out another 14 year old boy shot him. The shooter thinks he should go because he killed the wrong guy. The mother's killer and the mother of the victim unknowingly meet up and talk for a long period of time in the squad room. Pembleton gets disillusioned about ever having children if they grow up in a world like this.

3) "A Doll's Eye" - Bayliss and Pembleton get involved in a shooting of a boy at a mall. The boy ends up brain dead and the parents struggle with taking the boy off of life support and placing his organs in the organ donor registry to save other children's lives. Marcia Gay Hayden's portrayal of the little boy's mom will have you in tears. It's a quiet episode that focuses on the victims and the struggles that they have to face.