Homicide: Life on the Street was adapted from
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, a non-fiction book by
Baltimore Sun reporter
David Simon, based on his experience following a
Baltimore Police Department homicide unit in 1988. Simon, who became a consultant and producer with the series, said he was particularly interested in the debunking of the American detective. While detectives are typically portrayed as noble characters who care deeply about their victims, Simon believed real detectives regarded violence as a normal aspect of their jobs. Simon sent the book to film director and Baltimore native
Barry Levinson with the hopes that it would be adapted into a film, but Levinson thought it would be more appropriate material for television because the stories and characters could be developed over a longer period of time. Levinson believed that a television adaptation would bring a fresh and original edge to the police drama genre because the book exploded many of the myths of the police drama genre by highlighting that cops did not always get along with each other and that criminals occasionally got away with their crimes. Levinson approached screenwriter
Paul Attanasio with the material, and
Homicide became Attanasio's first foray into television writing. All episodes of
Homicide display the credit, "Created by Paul Attanasio" at the end of their opening sequence, a credit which both
Eric Overmyer and
James Yoshimura dispute on the DVD audio commentary to the season 5 episode, "The Documentary", claiming instead the show was created by
Tom Fontana and Yoshimura. The series title was originally
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, but
NBC changed it so that viewers would not believe it was limited to a single year; the network also believed the use of the term "life" would be more reaffirming than the term "killing streets". Levinson was indifferent to the change, asserting that viewers would probably casually refer to the series as "Homicide" in either case. The opening theme music was composed by Baltimore native Lynn F. Kowal, a graduate of the
Peabody Institute of the
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Homicides purpose was to provide its viewers with a no-nonsense,
police procedural-type glimpse into the lives of a squad of inner-city detectives. As opposed to many television shows and movies involving cops,
Homicide initially opted for a bleak sort of realism in its depiction of "The Job", portraying it as repetitive, spiritually draining, an
existential threat to one's psyche, often glamour- and glory-free—but, nonetheless, a social necessity. In its attempt to do so,
Homicide developed a trademark feel and look that distinguished itself from its contemporaries. For example, the series was filmed with hand-held 16 mm cameras almost entirely
on-location in
Baltimore (making the idiosyncratic city something of a character itself). It also regularly used music montages,
jump cut editing, and the three-times-in-a-row repetition of the same camera shot during particularly crucial moments in the story. The episodes were also noted for interweaving as many as three or four storylines in a single episode. NBC executives often asked the writers to focus on a single homicide case rather than multiple ones, but the show producers tended to resist this advice. The police department scenes were shot at the historic City Recreation Pier in
Fells Point neighborhood in Baltimore. Although NBC occasionally pressured the show's producers to write happy endings to the homicide cases, the network gave an unusual amount of freedom for the writers to create darker stories and non-traditional detective story elements, like unsolved cases where criminals escape. Nevertheless, in its attempt to improve
Homicides ratings, NBC often insisted on changes, both cosmetic and thematic. For example, by the beginning of the third season, talented but unphotogenic veteran actor
Jon Polito had been ordered dropped from the cast. The show was originally a production of
Baltimore Pictures in association with
Thames Television's subsidiary studio
Reeves Entertainment, an American studio. In between the first and second season, Reeves had closed due to
Pearson plc's acquisition of their parent company Thames, and the latter's requirement of either spinning off the studio or transferring their existing properties still in production which included
Home in late 1993. After the four-episode second season had aired, NBC negotiated with Thames and MCEG Sterling Entertainment, who oversaw and held interest on the
Homicide property on behalf of Thames, on the show's renewal for an order for a third season alongside taking over co-ownership, co-production duties, and copyright, though Pearson (whose television division and library is now owned by
Fremantle) continued to hold international distribution rights outside of North America. The reality of
Homicides low Nielsen ratings hovered over all things, however, and always left the show in a precarious position; it also had a harder time gaining a large audience because fewer viewers are at home watching TV on Friday nights. Despite this, the network managed to keep what
TV Guide referred to as "The Best Show You're Not Watching" on the air for five full seasons and seven seasons in all. In July 1997, NBC gave the series producers an ultimatum to make
Homicide more popular than
Nash Bridges or face cancellation. When this goal was not reached, the studio gave serious consideration to canceling the show, but a number of shocks at NBC increased
Homicides value. Among those factors were the loss of the popular series
Seinfeld and the $850 million deal needed to keep
ER from leaving the network. As of August 19, 2024, all seven seasons are available to stream on NBCUniversal's Peacock service, although cropped to widescreen format and with some music changed. == Characters ==