Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.20 “The Gas Man”

Posted on August 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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! It can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, the third season of Homicide comes to an end.

Episode 3.2o “The Gas Man”

(Dir by Barry Levinson, originally aired on May 5th, 1995)

The third season of Homicide was coming to an end and NBC was dragging its heels as to whether or not it would renew the show. Homicide was critically acclaimed but its ratings were low, despite the efforts to make the show more audience-friendly during the third season. Producer Barry Levinson grew frustrated with NBC’s refusal to tell him whether or not the show would be renewed. Feeling that show was probably over, Levinson and showrunner Tom Fontana decided to do something truly radical. They crafted a series finale that sidelined most of the major characters.

Instead, The Gas Man focuses on Victor Helms (Bruno Kirby) and his best friend, Danny Newton (Richard Edson). Helms has just gotten out of prison, where he served six years after a gas heater he installed malfunctioned and caused the death of one of his customers. Helms blames Frank Pembleton for the loss of both his freedom and his family. (After getting released, Helms tries to talk to his teenage son but is rejected.) Helms and Newton follow Pembleton across Baltimore, watching as he goes to work and to a fertility clinic. While Pembleton is investigating the murder of a fortune teller, Helms and Newton sneak onto the crime scene and find both the murder weapon and the fortune teller’s severed head. Helms takes both of them home and sends pictures to the Baltimore Sun, trying to taunt Pembleton. Both the Sun and Pembleton assume its a hoax. Eventually, Helms makes his move and, even with a knife to Pembleton’s throat, he realizes that he doesn’t have it in him to commit a cold-blooded murder. He starts to cry. Pembleton arrests him. Life goes on.

This was an interesting episode. The first time I saw it, I was a bit annoyed that the focus was taken off the lead characters. But the more I think about it, the more I appreciate what Levinson was going for. With this episode, he shows us what happens after the investigation and the conviction. Victor Helms is angry because he feels, perhaps with some justification, that he was unfairly charged and convicted. He’s obsessed with Pembleton but it’s clear that Pembleton doesn’t even remember him. For Pembleton, arresting Victor Helms was a part of his job, nothing more. For Helms, it was the moment that his entire life collapsed. Bruno Kirby and Richard Edson both gave good performances as Helms and Danny. Kirby captured Helms’s obsession but he also gave us some glimpses of the man that Helms used to be. As portrayed by Edson, Danny’s loyalty to his friend was actually kind of touching.

Of course, it turned out that this episode was not the series finale. Homicide would return for a fourth season, without Daniel Baldwin or Ned Beatty. We’ll start season four next week!

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.18 “In Search of Crimes Past”

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Giardello sets a dangerous precedent.

Episode 3.18 “In Search of Crimes Past”

(Dir by Kenneth Fink, originally aired on April 14th, 1995)

A woman (Felicia Shakman) takes Colonel Barnfather hostage, pointing a gun at his head and demanding that Bolander reopen the investigation into a murder that occurred sixteen years ago. Bolander was the primary on the murder and the man that he arrested is scheduled to be executed in just a matter of hours. The woman with the gun is the man’s daughter. Russert wants to bring in the hostage negotiators but Giardello instead orders Bolander to take a look at the files and the evidence and to try to see if he arrested the wrong man.

I’m not really sure I buy Giardello’s response. Giardello claims he has no choice but actually, it seems to me that Giardello is setting a dangerous precedent. In Baltimore, if you think a relative has been wrongly convicted, you can apparently just take someone hostage and demand the case be reopened. I’m not sure those are the rules that anyone wants to set.

Now, of course, it turns out that Bolander did arrest the wrong guy. It perhaps would have been more interesting if Bolander had look at the files and said, “Yeah, I got the right guy,” but then this episode wouldn’t be able to make a statement against the death penalty. Bolander realizes that he made a mistake and also that the actual murderer is a man who committed suicide that very evening.

While that’s going on, Pembleton and Bayliss investigate the death of an elderly woman who appears to have slipped and drowned in her bathtub. Her husband (Barnard Hughes) seems to be heartbroken. Of course, the husband actually killed her. He has fallen in love with another woman and he killed his wife so that he could be with her. I preferred this storyline to the Bolander one, just because it featured a lot of Pembleton/Bayliss scenes and a good performance from Barnard Hughes.

Finally, Munch hired a new bartender. He didn’t bother to tell his partners beforehand but how could Lewis and Bayliss possibly complain about Munch hiring Jerry Stiller to tend bar? (Technically, Stiller was playing an Irishman named McGonical.) This was a minor but likeable storyline, mostly because of Jerry Stiller’s likably bizarre performance.

So, this was yet another good but not great episode. The Bolander storyline was a bit too melodramatic for its own good. It’s not the sort of thing that would have happened during the show’s first two seasons, back when the whole point was to be realistic. But that Bayliss/Pembleton storyline featured the show’s two most compelling characters doing what they did did best. This episode was not perfect but it held my attention nonetheless.

Silicon Towers (1999, directed by Serge Rodnunsky)

Posted on July 15, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Charlie (Jonathan Quint) gets a promotion to an executive job at Silicon Towers. After his promotion, he is sent an encrypted email that reveals that the company is manufacturing computer chips that it can use to drain money from the banks and to control the world. Charlie goes on the run, jumping from roof to roof as he tries to avoid the company’s security team and reveal the truth. Brian Dennehy plays the evil CEO. Daniel Baldwin plays another executive. Brad Dourif plays a paranoid tech expert and steals the movie. Robert Guillaume is the police detective who is investigating the strange things that are happening around the company. Be sure to hum the Benson theme song while watching.

There was a lot of movies like Silicon Towers in the late 90s. The internet was still exotic and people were still convinced that technology was going to destroy us all on Y2K. Silicon Towers was not the only paranoid tech thriller to come out in 1999 but it might have been the most inept. Serge Rodnunsky made a lot of movies back in the day and never let a lack of a budget stand in his way but he also never seemed to understand the importance of being able to hear dialogue or smooth editing. There are some good actors in Silicon Towers. Good luck understanding what any of them are saying.

This film is mostly memorable for the scenes of Charlie “hacking.” Charlie writes his hacking code in HTML. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.17 “The Old and the Dead”

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Bolander and Howard return to Homicide.

Episode 3.16 “The Old and the Dead”

(Dir by Michael Fields, originally aired on March 3rd, 1995)

When Giardello discovers that Colonel Granger (Walt MacPherson) has been hiring his brother-in-law’s shady plumbing firm to do unnecessary repairs at the city’s police stations, he leaks the story to the press. When the scandal forces Granger out, Captain Barnfather is promoted to replace him. Giardello thinks that, with his years of experience, he’ll be the obvious replacement for Barnfather. Instead, the captain position is offered to Russert. As Barnfather explains it, the mayor is aware that the majority of the voters in Baltimore are women. When Giardello mentions that even more of the voters are black, Barnfather explains that the mayor’s leadership team already has a black man, him.

Giradello is not happy and he doesn’t hold back from letting Russert know about his displeasure. I have to say that I respected Giardello for not holding back. Russert has less experience than Giardello and, from what we’ve seen of her, she doesn’t appear to be as good at her job as Giardello is. I mean, let’s be honest. Russert had an affair with Beau Felton, of all people! It’s a little bit hard to respect her judgment.

While Giardello was once again failing in his efforts to move up, both Howard and Bolander returned to duty. Howard, on light duty, still manages to solve a case. Bolander, meanwhile, is now wearing a hat to cover up the surgery scars that crisscross his head. Ned Beatty, as usual, gave a good performance as Bolander. I like Ned Beatty. For some reason, I’ve never really liked Stanley Bolander. I think it might be because he’s always complaining about something. Maybe it’s because I’m still annoyed by the amount of unnecessary time that the first season spent on Bolander’s love life. Or maybe it’s because Munch is devoted to the guy and Bolander still treats him like crap every chance that he gets. For whatever reason, Bolander has always just kind of annoyed me. That was the case with this episode. I’m not saying I felt good about it. Bolander was shot in the head and nearly died! He has every right to be grumpy. But there is just a part of me that is like, “If you hate your job so much, just retire. Otherwise, stop bitching about everything!”

Finally, Bayliss and Felton worked surprisingly well together as they investigated a skeleton found in someone’s backyard. It turned out that two men has never reported the death of their father so that they could continue to collect his social security checks.

As much as I complain about Bolander, this was not a bad episode. This was a good example of an episode where the mysteries and plotlines were less important than just watching everyone in the cast play off of each other. As of this season, the ensemble has really come together as a tight unit and each character has really come to life as an individual. That’s one reason why I enjoyed watching Bayliss and Felton work together. It was interesting to see how they interreacted and to compare it to how Bayliss worked with Pembleton and Felton with Howard.

Finally, this episode featured a cute cameo from the late Tim Russert, who is introduced as being Megan’s cousin. Felton says that he never misses Meet the Press. For some reason, I doubt that.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.16 “Law & Disorder”

Posted on July 6, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Munch gets away with murder.

Episode 3.16 “Law & Disorder”

(Dir by John McNaughton, originally aired on February 24th, 1995)

This week’s episode of Homicide gets off to a strange start, with a cameo from Chris Noth as Law & Order‘s Detective Mike Logan. (Logan appeared early in the history of Law & Order, before North became known as the ill-fated Mr. Big on Sex And The City.) Logan is transporting a prisoner to Baltimore and that prisoner is played by none other than John Waters! Meeting Pembleton at the Amtrak station, Logan proceeds to bitch about Baltimore. Pembleton bitches about New York. Waters comments that Edgar Allan Poe hated New York. When Pembleton says that Waters will be heading to prison but at least it will be a Baltimore prison, Waters says that’s why he didn’t fight extradition. It’s a cute scene, though, as I watched it, I was struck by just how better of an actor Andre Braugher was than Chris Noth. Noth delivered all of his line like a TV actor. Braughter delivered his dialogue like a poet.

As for the rest of the show, we get several plotlines. Bayliss is investigating the death of Gordon Pratt but, because Pratt shot Bolander, Felton, and Howard, none of his fellow detectives are that concerned about solving his murder. Bayliss comes to suspect that it was a homicide detective who shot Pratt. He asks Pembleton, Lewis, and Munch for their alibis and none of them really have a good one. Myself, I think it’s pretty obvious that Much shot Pratt. Munch’s hero-worship of Bolander, his anger after Pratt walked out of the station, all of it pretty much makes him the main suspect. Lewis, who is still struggling to come to terms with Crosetti’s suicide, seems like he would be more likely to deal with his anger by drinking. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, Pembleton is too much of a wannabe Jesuit to do the eye for an eye thing. Munch, though …. yeah, there’s no way Munch didn’t kill Gordon Pratt. John Munch is a murderer. (Okay, to be clear, the show leaves it ambiguous and never outright states that Munch was the killer but it’s still kind of obvious.)

And he gets away with it. Bayliss tells Giardello that he’s followed-up every lead and that the Pratt case is just going to have remain open and go cold. “Won’t help your clearance level,” Giardello shrugs. It’s a decision that’s going to haunt Bayliss but the show suggests that Bayliss sees it as a sort of cosmic justice. Before announcing that the case is going to go cold, Bayliss has a conversation with Pembleton and, of course, Bayliss brings up the Adena Watson case. The Arabist got away with killing Adena Watson so Bayliss is going to let someone — Munch, let’s be honest — get away with killing Gordon Pratt.

Munch isn’t just a murder suspect in this episode. He’s also a laughing-stock as a nude photo of him from his hippie days is the centerpiece of a photography exhibition that’s being put on by an ex-girlfriend (Valerie Perrine). It was kind of strange, watching the episode go from Much being a suspected murderer to Munch being the comedic relief. Still, I always enjoy it when the show remembers that Munch is basically a drug-addled survivor of the 60s.

Felton returns to the squad room, cleared for light duty. He insists on going out to a crime scene with Giardello, leading to Felton stumbling around, making a fool of himself, and then throwing up afterwards. Giardello informs Felton that he’s not a good detective in his current state but then again, Giardello adds, Felton has never been a good detective. Ouch! That’s harsh. Of course, it’s also true. As I’ve said before, I would not want sweaty, racist, borderline illiterate Beau Felton investigating the murder of anyone close to me.

Finally, Pembleton and Lewis investigated an apparently random shooting. Pembleton thought the gunshot came from the projects. Lewis insisted that the gunshot came from the white side of the neighborhood. It turned out Lewis was right but Pembleton was unapologetic, saying he would investigate the case the exact same way if he had to do it all over again. Watching this storyline, I found myself thinking about how black characters on television often feel interchangeable and they rarely have much of a personality beyond being a white person’s idea of what their black best friend might be like. Homicide featured three prominent black characters — Lewis, Pembleton, and Giardello — and all three of them are portrayed as being unique individuals with their own different ways of viewing the world, the job, and each other. Even today, when every television show is desperate to make sure everyone knows how “committed to diversity” they are, it’s rare to see a network show like Homicide, where black characters are portrayed as being individuals as opposed to just stereotypes. This is something for which Homicide definitely deserves a bit more credit.

This was a good episode. It appears the murder of Gordon Pratt will never be solved. Of course, we all know Much did it.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.15 “End Game”

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Homicide detective finally arrest the shooter but can they get a confession?

Episode 3.15 “End Game”

(Dir by Lee Bonner, originally aired on February 10th, 1995)

Finally, the Homicide detectives have figured out who actually shot Bolander, Howard, and Felton. Gordon Pratt (Steve Buscemi), who lived at the apartment that the detectives were accidentally sent to, is a gun-obsessed pseudo-intellectual whose apartment is full of books that he’s probably never read and a picture of himself posing like Lee Harvey Oswald with the rifle he used to kill JFK. Pratt also has an outstanding warrant for his arrest, explaining why he panicked when the cops accidentally knocked on his door.

Here’s my question. Why exactly did it not occur to anyone to see who lived in Apartment 201 when the shootings first happened? I understand that they were focused on a different suspect but it still seems strange that, with all the detectives assigned to the case, no one bothered to check out the guy who lived in Apartment 201.

Anyway, Bayliss and Mitch Drummond drop in on Pratt’s parents, who own a farmhouse and insist that Gordon would never shoot anyone. Meanwhile, Pratt’s co-workers all talk about how much they hate his guts with one guy mentioning that Pratt went out of his way to antagonize people. Pratt is finally tracked down at a massage parlor.

The majority of this episode centers around Pembleton and Bayliss interrogating Pratt. It’s an obvious attempt to recapture the intensity of the first season’s Three Men and Adena and it actually succeeds, thanks to some smart writing and the performances of Andre Braugher, Kyle Secor, and especially Steve Buscemi. Buscemi plays Pratt as being the ultimate uneducated know-it-all, someone who has picked bits and pieces of philosophy and who has learned that, if you deliver your mundane thoughts with a sneering contempt, some people will assume that you’re smarter than you actually are. Pembleton and Bayliss have fun picking apart Pratt’s arrogance but — and this is what sets Homicide apart from so many other cop shows — Pembleton ultimately goes too far. When he takes a look at Pratt’s copy of Plato’s The Republic and realizes that it’s written in Greek, Pembleton can’t help but taunt Pratt and point out that, unlike Pratt, he can actually read ancient Greek because he was educated by “the Jesuits,” while Pratt didn’t even mange to graduate high school.

“I want a lawyer!” Pratt shouts.

At this point, I realized that I had gotten so wrapped up in the interrogation scene that I had totally forgotten about the fact that all of the evidence linking Pratt to the shooting was circumstantial. Without a gun or a confession, there’s not enough evidence to hold Pratt. He pleads out to his outstanding assault warrant and he’s free within a few hours.

“You got too cute, Frank,” Munch says, leading to Pembleton physically attacking Munch and then storming out of the station. Munch goes to the hospital to see Bolander (who has woken up from his coma but who has no memory of who Much actually is) and Bayliss is the only person left to take the call when Gordon Pratt turns up dead in the lobby of his apartment building, shot in the head.

Who murdered Gordon Pratt and was it a cop? That’s what Bayliss — who sarcastically declares “I love my job!” before heading to the crime scene — will have to figure out.

Great episode! Not only was it wonderfully performed but, just when you thought to yourself, “There’s no way Pembleton could get away with this in real life,” it turns out that Pembleton couldn’t get away with it on Homicide either. That’s what makes Frank Pembleton such a fascinating character. He’s a brilliant detective but, in this episode, he let his desire to embarrass Pratt get in the way of doing his job. “He who loses control loses,” Pembleton says and, in this episode, he lost control. Pembleton’s reaction is to storm out of the station in a huff, leaving Bayliss the task of figuring out who killed Gordon Pratt.

My money’s on Munch, just because of how upset he was when Pratt walked and also that it would make sense for Munch to avenge Bolander’s head wound by shooting Pratt in the head. We’ll see if I’m correct next week!

Brad reviews FAMILY OF COPS (1995), starring Charles Bronson!

Posted on June 25, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Legendary actor Charles Bronson ended his five-decade career by starring in a series of made-for-TV movies, FAMILY OF COPS (1995), BREACH OF FAITH: A FAMILY OF COPS II (1997), and FAMILY OF COPS III: UNDER SUSPICION (1999). I was in my mid-twenties as this series played out, and I enjoyed each of the installments. Today, I’m going to take a look at the first in the series.

In FAMILY OF COPS, Charles Bronson stars as Police Inspector Paul Fein. Paul, a widower as we enter this story, leads a family who is heavily involved in law enforcement in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His oldest son Ben (Daniel Baldwin) is a detective on the force. Ben is a family man in a loving marriage with several wild kids. Paul’s younger son Eddie (Sebastian Spence) is a patrol cop. Eddie’s single, has a beautiful girlfriend, and seems to be a nice guy with a well-adjusted life. Paul’s oldest daughter Kate (Barbara Williams) is a local public defender. She seems to be dedicated to her work, not leaving much time for a social life. And then there’s Paul’s youngest daughter Jackie (Angela Featherstone), who has moved out to California and refers to herself as “the family curse.” This story opens with Jackie reluctantly coming back to Milwaukee to attend her dad’s birthday party. All Paul wants for his birthday is for his family to be together. We soon learn that neither Ben or Kate care much for Jackie and her irresponsible life choices. As a matter of fact, the reason she ran off to California in the first place was to get out from under her family’s disapproval. It’s not long after she gets back that the family wishes she would have stayed away. Sneaking out of her sister’s house late at night to drink and party, she meets the prominent local businessman Adam Novacek (Simon MacCorkindale), eventually going to his home and engaging in sexual intercourse. Sadly, the next morning she wakes up to Novacek’s recently deceased corpse, and she’s arrested as the prime suspect in his murder. Convinced of her innocence, Paul, Ben, and Eddie set about trying to clear her name and find the real murderer. Besides Jackie, other suspects begin to emerge, including Novacek’s current wife Anna (Lesley-Anne Down), his former wife Laura (Kate Trotter), who’s now confined to a looney bin, and a local gangster named Frank Rampola (John Vernon), who has a vendetta against Paul for recently busting his grandson. How far will Paul Fein go to protect his family in his search for a killer?!!

FAMILY OF COPS is a perfect example of what I would refer to as entertainment for the “older person crowd,” and I don’t mean this as a put-down in any way as I enjoyed the movie. I just mean that it fits a type of entertainment that was popular in the 80’s and 90’s. These types of shows would depend greatly on the charisma or reputation of a veteran actor or actress, would contain simple production values, and would usually follow formulaic plots. Examples of the types of shows I’m referring to include MURDER, SHE WROTE with Angela Lansbury, MATLOCK with Andy Griffith, DIAGNOSIS MURDER with Dick Van Dyke, and WALKER: TEXAS RANGER with Chuck Norris. A combination of my dad, mom and grandma loved all of these shows. I’m a big fan of MATLOCK myself. In this case, FAMILY OF COPS leans heavily on Charles Bronson’s five decades as a tough guy icon to anchor a somewhat formulaic crime film and family melodrama. The role of Paul Fein fits a 73-year-old Bronson like a glove. He’s still in good physical shape, and the movie gives him a couple of opportunities to punch the shit out of some much younger thugs and henchmen. That was fun for me.

The supporting cast of the film is solid. Daniel Baldwin and Angela Featherstone make the biggest impact. Baldwin is good as the oldest son, a hothead, tough guy on the job who is constantly being humbled at home. Featherstone has the most beautiful eyes, and her rebellious character seems to have a good heart, but she just can’t seem to keep herself out of trouble. Paul Fein’s love for his troubled daughter Jackie is a sweet part of the story and provides something that most of us can relate to. She told me that she “loved Charles,” and I think you can see that in their scenes together. Sebastian Spence and Barbara Williams don’t have a lot to do in this first installment, but their characters will get their own moments to shine in the sequels. I also enjoy seeing John Vernon and Lesley Anne-Down show up in the movie as various persons of interest throughout the story. Bronson and Lesley Anne-Down had recently worked together in DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH (1994) and were reportedly good friends in real life. Ted Kotcheff directed FAMILY OF COPS, which I find kind of disappointing. The same guy who directed movies like NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979) and FIRST BLOOD (1982) didn’t bring anything special to the table in this film. I know it’s a modestly budgeted made-for-TV movie, but the best that can be said for the direction is that it’s workmanlike, and you would never suspect that the director had once helmed the original Rambo movie.

Ultimately, I enjoy FAMILY OF COPS because it stars Charles Bronson. Even as an older man, Bronson still dominates a scene, and the ratings success of the movie proved that Bronson still had an audience who wanted to see him on screen. And even though the story isn’t very unique and the central mystery isn’t very exciting, just the fact that Bronson is leading a solid story that includes action, crime, mystery and family melodrama will always provide some moments of joy for his fans like me. This is far from Bronson’s best work, but the old workhorse still knows how to entertain!

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.14 “Dead End”

Posted on June 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the elusive Glenn Holton is captured but is really the shooter? Read on and find out!

Episode 3.13 “Dead End”

(Dir by Whitney Ransick, originally aired on February 3rd, 1995)

There’s a truly remarkable moment in this week’s episode of Homicide.

Glenn Holton (Steve Hofvendahl) has finally been arrested and is sitting in the Box. Holton is the pedophile who is suspected of murdering a child. Last week, Felton, Bolander, and Howard were all shot while trying to serve a warrant for his arrest. Bayliss and Pembleton are interviewing him, attempting to get him to confess to shooting the detectives.

At first, Holton is adamant that he did not shoot anyone. But as Pembleton and Bayliss shout at him and tell him about all the things that are going to happen to him as a sex offender in prison, Holton’s demeanor starts to change. He becomes desperate and confused and suddenly, he confesses to shooting the detectives. The only problem is that the story Holton comes up with doesn’t match the facts of the case. He claims that he shot the detectives on the roof of his apartment building. He claims they were coming at him. When asked what type of gun he used, Holton says it was just some gun that he bought on the street. The more Holton talks, the more obvious it becomes that, while he did murder the child, he didn’t shoot the detectives.

It’s an interesting scene because it shows just how easy it could be to get a false confession out of a suspect. It’s left ambiguous as to whether or not Holton was lying because he preferred to be sent to prison for shooting a cop instead of killing a kid or if maybe Holton actually had deluded himself into thinking he was the shooter. If Bayliss and Pembleton hadn’t asked him follow-up questions about the shooting, Holton probably would have been charged with the shooting. He did, after all, confess.

Holton’s going to jail for murder but the shooter is still out there. Who fired the gun? I suspect I know, just because next week’s episode features a special guest star. But we’ll talk about that next week!

The interrogation scene was the highlight of this week’s episode. Still, I enjoyed the scenes of Munch working with Bolander’s ex-partner Mitch and struggling to hide his jealousy. (Bolander is always complaining that Mitch was a far better partner than Munch.) I was a bit less interested in this week’s Russert plot. Megan was told to investigate whether or not Giardello was at fault for the detectives going to the wrong apartment. She discovered Giardello did approve and initial the warrant without double-checking the address. Giardello was prepared to take the blame but Russet instead lied and claimed that, because of budget cuts, she and Giardello were both often rushed into signing things without getting a chance to fully examine them. I’m not sure that’s a particularly good excuse but it worked.

At the hospital, Howard woke up from her coma. Bolander is still in his coma and was not present during this episode. (From what I’ve read, Ned Beatty was apparently not happy with the whole shooting storyling, feeling that it went against the realism that was supposed to be Homicide’s calling card.) Lewis and Felton had a heart-to-heart about what it’s like to lose one’s partner. It was an effective scene, even if Felton has become a bit of a one-note character.

This was a good episode and a marked improvement on last week. I look forward to seeing how things conclude (or if they even do conclude) in the next episode.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.13 “The City That Bleeds”

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s another red ball on Homicide!

Episode 3.12 “The City That Bleeds”

(Dir by Tim Hunter, originally aired on January 27th, 1995)

This week’s episode opens with Bolander, Munch, Howard, and Felton having a morning meeting outside of an apartment building. They put on bullet-proof vets because they (and several uniformed officers) are about to arrest Glenn Holton, a sex offender who is believed to have murdered a child. Unfortunately, because of a transcription error on the warrant, the detective go to Apartment 201 instead of 210. As they knock on the door to 201, someone on the stairwell opens fire on them. Bolander, Howard, and Felton are hit. Munch somehow avoids being shot.

It’s red ball time! We’re only 12 episodes into season 3 and this is our third “all hands on deck” red ball of the season. NBC reportedly wanted showrunner Tom Fontana to give them more drama in return for renewing the low-rated Homicide and Fontana delivered.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This was a compelling episode, featuring Pembleton tracking Glenn Holton across the city while Bayliss tried to deal with his guilt over being relieved that he wasn’t shot. After visiting the hospital, Giardello had an emotional breakdown while Lewis was driving him back to the station. Felton’s wife returned from Philadelphia to visit him in the hospital. Gloria Reuben and Tony Lo Bianco guest-starred as detectives who came in to help with the case and, for both of them, this episode felt like an audition to join the cast. Things ended with a cliffhanger. Holton is still at large. Felton is awake but hospitalized. Bolander and Kay are still in critical condition. It was an exciting episode.

And yet, one can understand why Ned Beatty later said, in an interview, that this was one of the episodes that eventually led to him leaving the show. First off, why the detectives would be serving the arrest warrant as opposed to the uniformed cops or, considering Holton’s crimes, even the SWAT team, I’m not sure. Munch makes a comment about how the four of them had served hundreds of arrest warrants in the past but it’s not something that we’ve ever seen them do on the show before. That the nonstop emotional drama was compelling was due to the strength of the cast and not the strength of the script, which was occasionally so overwrought that it felt almost like a parody of a cop show. This episode worked but, after it ended, I found myself thinking about how different it felt from the deliberately-paced and moody episodes the aired during the first and second seasons.

And finally, it’s hard not to get annoyed that, with everything going on, we still had to deal with all of Felton’s stupid domestic nonsense. I’m tried of hearing about Felton’s wife and kids and how he can’t make his marriage work. I’m even more tired of Megan Russert, a character who could be a total badass, being solely defined by her relationship with Felton.

This episode, the first of a three-parter, held my attention while I was watching it and it was only afterwards that I realized I kind of had mixed feelings about it overall. Homicide is changing. We’ll see where it goes.

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 3.11 “Cradle to Grave”

Posted on May 11, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, secrets are uncovered and trust is betrayed.

Episode 3.11 “Cradle to Grave”

(Dir by Myles Connell, originally aired on January 13th, 1995)

Police Commissioner James Harris (Al Freeman, Jr.) gives Pembleton a special assignment. A congressman (Dick Stillwell) claims to have been temporarily abducted by a man in a van but he also says that he doesn’t want to press charges. Both Harris and Pembleton suspect that the Congressman is lying and that he filed a false police report, which is itself a crime. Pembleton’s investigation leads to the discovery that the abduction story was actually the congressman’s attempt to cover-up a quarrel between him and his lover (Christopher Glenn Wilson). Pembleton goes to the congressman and offers to drop the investigation into the abduction so that the congressman’s personal life will not be exposed. The congressman agrees.

Unfortunately, news of the false police report still gets out and Pembleton is sold out by Harris, who claims that he never gave Pembleton permission to drop the investigation, even though Harris made it clear that he wanted the problem to go away. Outraged over being sold out by his boss and also by Giardello’s refusal to back him up (Giardello is upset that Pembleton lied to him about the investigation), Pembleton turns in his badge and quits the force.

Meanwhile, Lewis and Much investigate the murder of a biker. What they discover is that the biker sacrificed his own life after it was discovered that his wife was an FBI informant. In order to keep the gang from going after his daughter, the victim agreed to be killed in retribution.

And finally, Felton and Howard try to investigate a murder but …. where’s the body!? It turns out that the body is on the move. First, it’s accidentally sent to the hospital before Felton and Howard can get a look at it. Then, it’s returned to the crime scene while Felton and Howard are heading to the morgue. Apparently, this was based on a true story and I can believe it. There’s no incompetence like bureaucratic incompetence.

This was not a bad episode. Andre Braugher did a great job of capturing Pembleton’s pain at being betrayed by his mentor, Commission Harris. Even the biker stuff was well-handled, with Timothy Wheeler giving a strong performance as the club’s “warlord.” The biker stuff had an interesting subplot, with one of the bikers revealing himself to be an undercover FBI agent trying to make a RICO case. As with the case involving the congressman, it helped to create a definite atmosphere of mistrust that ran through the entire episode. Whether it was the FBI or the congressman or just the EMTs, no one could be trusted and no one knew what they were doing.

It’s a good episode. I hope Pembleton reconsiders quitting. The city needs him.