Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!

This week, the tyranny of the new detectives continues.

Episode 6.11 “Shaggy Dog, City Goat”

(Dir by Kyle Secor, originally aired on January 16th, 1998)

If Homicide were currently airing, this is the type of episode that I would refuse to review. This is the type of episode that would force me to take a stand and announce, “NBC, what the hell are you doing!?” However, since Homicide has been off the air for nearly 30 years, there’s nothing to be gained by boycotting.

Neither Pembleton nor Bayliss is in this episode. Now, in all fairness, I should mention that Kyle Secor directed this episode, so it makes sense that Bayliss wouldn’t be a part of the main action. And who knows? Maybe Andre Braugher was doing a movie or something. In the past, the show could have survived an episode without Pembleton and Bayliss. Some of the Lewis/Kellerman episodes are my favorites of seasons 4 and 5. Munch and Howard were always a good combination as well. But this is season 6. Kay Howard is gone. Lewis and Kellerman are barely speaking. And we’ve got new detectives to deal with!

Ballard and Gharty, for instance, investigate the death of a drug dealer from Appalachia. Apparently, in Baltimore, hillbillies are known as city goats. Gharty is familiar with them. Ballard, being from Seattle, is not. Personally, I like Ballard and Gharty as partners. I appreciate the fact that Gharty is a deeply flawed man who still tries to do a good job and who wants to be a better person. (That makes him more interesting than a certain other new Homicide detective.) But the whole City Goat thing just fell flat. This is the type of loose storyline that Lewis and Kellerman could have done wonders with because both of them are firmly established characters with their own unique rhythm. I like Ballard and Gharty, but they still haven’t reached that point.

Meanwhile, Falsone is preparing to go to court to get custody of his children and… you know what? I don’t care about Falsone and his kids. We already went through this storyline with Beau Felton, and it wasn’t that interesting the first time.

Georgia Rae Mahoney files a wrongful death lawsuit against the Homicide Department. WHO CARES!? Seriously, this Mahoney stuff is so boring. Lewis confronts Georgia and makes the mistake of striking her. Georgia laughs and laughs. It’s so cartoonish that I felt embarrassed for everyone involved. Lewis gets suspended. Well, great. I guess that will mean cases for Falsone to mumble his way through.

Finally, Dr. Cox told her fellow MEs a story about a man who jumped off a roof and then got shot as he passed his parents’ window. Now, I did enjoy this part of the episode, even if the whole storyline was just a retelling of a familiar urban legend. Kellerman and Munch worked the suicide-that-might-be-a-homicide. Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows both overacted as the parents of the deceased, but at least they didn’t break into Georgia Mahoney-style mad laughter. But Munch, Kellerman, and Cox made for a good team.

I’m really not sure what NBC was thinking sidelining the most popular characters on the show in favor of Jon Seda’s Falsone. From what I’ve read, Falsone was supposed to be the cool, sexy cop who would bring in younger viewers, but the character is so boring and Seda’s performance is so bland that my mind starts to wander whenever he shows up in an episode. The sixth season has felt like the Falsone show, and it annoys me that I can’t write to NBC to complain.