Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 5.3 “Prison Riot”

Posted on March 29, 2026 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, we have one of Homicide’s best episodes.

Episode 5.3 “Prison Riot”

(Dir by Kenneth Fink, originally aired on October 18th, 1996)

At the Maryland State Prison, convicted murderer Claude Vetter (Mark Rogers) accidentally bumps into another murderer, James Douglas (Tim McAdams), in the cafeteria. James pulls a knife and stabs Vetter in the stomach. As Vetter collapses, a riot breaks out. By the time the guards have forcefully restored order, Vetter and James Douglas are dead. Everyone knows who killed Vetter. But who stabbed James in the back?

Lewis, Munch, Howard, Bayliss, Kellerman and Giardello head down to the scene. (Pembleton, who is still struggling with his up-coming shooting test, is left behind.) Munch and Lewis don’t care about solving Douglas’s murder. As far as they’re concerned, both Claude Vetter and James Douglas got what they deserved. Munch gets annoyed and returns to the station. Lewis sticks around to help Bayliss with a few interrogations before he also leaves. Bayliss, however, is determined to solve the murder of James Douglas and Kellerman, looking to make up all the ill will that has existed between him and Bayliss, does his best to help.

Bayliss is convinced that Elijah Sanborn (Charles S. Dutton) saw who killed James. Sanborn is serving a life sentence for shooting a drug dealer who previously shot and killed Elijah’s wife in drive-by. (Elijah’s wife was an innocent bystander.) Elijah has been in prison for 14 years. He’s never getting out and he sees no reason why he should help the police. However, when Elijah’s 14 year-old son is arrested for a petty theft, Bayliss offers a deal. If Elijah tells Bayliss who killed James Douglas, Elijah’s son will only do 6 months at a juvenile facility. If Elijah refuses to talk, his son will be charged as an adult.

Elijah is outraged that Bayliss would “use my own son against me!” It’s only after his estranged daughter (Heather Alicia Simms, giving a wonderful performance) visits that Elijah agrees to share what he knows. He has one condition. He wants to see his son. When Elijah’s son turns out to be a sullen and uncommunicative wannabe gangster who tells his father that he doesn’t care about him, Elijah announces, “I killed James Douglas.”

Bayliss knows that Elijah is lying but he also knows that Elijah’s confession is enough to send him to the gas chamber. With no prospects of ever walking free and having been rejected by both his daughter and his son, Elijah has decided to use the system to kill himself.

Fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on how you look at things, another prisoner, Tom Marans (Dean Winters), beats Trevor Douglas (John Epps) into a coma. Trevor was James’s cousin and Marans reveals that Trevor is also the one who killed James because he thought James had stolen a carton of cigarettes from him. Marans explains that he was James’s “wife” in prison.

As the episode ends, Giardello congratulates Bayliss before adding that it’ll only be a matter of time before Trevor’s people seek revenge and they all have to return to the prison to investigate the murder of Tom Marans.

This was a great episode. After spending the past few seasons as Pembleton’s sidekick, Bayliss finally got a chance to step up and show off his own abilities as a homicide detective. Kellerman assisting him turned out to be an inspired move, as it allowed Kellerman to finally be something more than just a kind of goofy frat boy detective. Working together, Kyle Secor and Reed Diamond had great comedic timing, which kept this rather grim episode from getting too dark. (Kellerman: “Do you want a hug?” Bayliss: “Do you and Lewis often hug?”)

One thing that made this episode interesting was that the victims, the suspects, and most of the witnesses were all murderers who were previously arrested on this show. It was interesting to see how prison had changed or, in some cases, not changed them. The once preppy Tom Marans now had bright yellow hair, scarred knuckles, and some really nasty facial sores. Meanwhile, James and Trevor Douglas were still the same punks that they were on the outside, when they used to film themselves committing murder.

Finally, what made this episode truly powerful was the performance of Charles S. Dutton. A Baltimore native who served time in prison before becoming an acclaimed stage actor, Dutton has not always been served well by television and the movies. He’s very much a theatrical actor and, when cast in the wrong role, he can come across as being a bit over-the-top. In this episode, though, Dutton is perfectly cast and he gives a truly moving performance of as an inherently decent man who does what he has to do in order to survive as a prisoner in a system that has been constructed specifically to break and destroy him. Elijah’s fury feels earned and deserved but, in the end, he’s ultimately just a father who wants things to be better for his son and his daughter. When Elijah’s son rejected him, it was one of Homicide’s most heart-breaking moments.

Prison Riot has a reputation for being one of Homicide’s best episodes. The reputation is very much deserved.

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: Malibu, CA 1.23 “The New Cook”

Posted on January 9, 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week’s episode is stupid! Let’s get to it.

Episode 1.23 “The New Cook”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on May 2nd, 1999)

After a relative in Texas breaks his leg — *sigh* I can already tell you that I’m going to hate this episode — Peter announces that he has to go down to the Lone Star State to look after the ranch because, of course, everyone who lives in Texas owns a ranch. (Except for me apparently.) Peter leaves Jason and Scott in charge of the restaurant. Jason points out that he doesn’t get paid to be an assistant manager. He gets paid to be a waiter and you know what? Jason is perhaps the biggest douchebag to ever appear on a television show but, in this case, he’s absolutely correct.

Seriously, does Peter not have any adult employees that he can leave in charge? Jason and Scott are not managers. They are just his good-for-nothing sons who he hired because they were too irresponsible to be left on their own. Scott has grown a bit more responsible over the course of the season but neither he nor Jason really has the track record of someone who you would leave in charge of a complicated business. Jason and Scott do some pretty stupid things in this episode but it’s all Peter’s fault for being dumb enough to give them so much responsibility in the first place.

With Peter gone, it falls to Jason and Scott to hire a new chef for the kitchen. They hire Inga (Victoria Silvstedt) because she’s tall, blonde, and apparently comes from a country where there are no laws about nepo kids sexually harassing their new employees. Unfortunately, it turns out that Inga cannot cook. The head chef refuses to work with her and storms out of the restaurant. Because neither Jason nor Scott can work up the courage to fire her, they try to teach her how to cook. Then they try to run the kitchen themselves. A bunch of Texans are coming to the restaurant and they’re expecting lobster. Uh-oh, Traycee set all the lobsters free! She dumped them in the ocean. Hey, Traycee, you probably just killed all of those lobsters! Can no one on this show think?

(And seriously, what was this episode’s deal with Texas?)

Scott and Jason have to figure out what to do about their guests who claim to be from Texas but who all have the fakest accents that I’ve ever seen. Bleh. Screw this storyline. It’s too stupid. I’m done talking about it.

Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Murray is visited by the legendary surfer, Webfoot Wilson (Peter Flanders). Webfoot says that he’s putting together a charity for injured surfers. But, after Sam and Stads see Webfoot stealing money from the Surf Shack’s cash register, they realize that he’s just a con artist! Will they find the courage to tell Murray that his friend is a thief? Of course, they will. What a stupid B-plot but I will give credit where credit is due. Brandon Brooks’s performance as Murray was probably the only thing that worked about this episode. Murray may have started out as a standard weird sidekick but Brooks was actually able to make him into a surprisingly likeable and occasionally even funny character.

Next week …. oh, who cares? Something will happen.