‘Life of the Street’ Available on Peacock 31 Years After It First Aired

Critics and viewers alike often look to the late ’90s and the rise of HBO when tracing the birth of prestige television. The premium cable network debuted “Sex and the City” in 1998 and the mob-crime drama “The Sopranos” in 1999. While both series ushered in a new wave of television that brought a cinematic feel to the small screen, it would be unfair to say that they first fanned the flame. Five years before Carrie and Big began their epic (and exhaustive) love story, “The Wire” creator David Simon’s first novel, “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets,” was adapted for television. More than three decades after its 1993 debut on NBC, all seven seasons of “Homicide: Life on the Street” and its accompanying TV movie are finally available to stream on Peacock.

Created by Paul Attanasio, “Homicide” is an intense, addictive, and hyper-realistic examination of the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit. While many cop shows of the era followed a standard path for audiences, roboticly unpacking cases and offering simplistic character analysis, “Homicide” did something different. Attanasio, showrunner Tom Fontana, and Simon, who served as writer and producer on the series, had a higher regard for their audience, as evidenced by the unique choices made throughout the series.

As the pilot “Gone For Goode” opens, viewers are thrown onto the streets of Baltimore. Under cover of darkness, Detectives Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito) discuss a book as they search for clues at a crime scene. As the shot widens, a dead man is seen lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to the head. As the scene ends, without the necessary evidence in hand, Crosetti casually quips, “That’s the problem with this job; it has nothing to do with life.”

Though the series has been remastered in high definition and 4K, it has a graininess that is now lost in the hyper-polished nature of digital filmmaking. And though the show is somewhat serialized, each episode functions as a puzzle piece for the next. The homicide squad color-code cases on a giant whiteboard, written in black for closed or red for open. The cases loop around one another and are eventually solved (or not).

Once oriented to the world, viewers new to the series will recognize some familiar faces. There’s Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher, who won his first Emmy for the role in 1998), a no-nonsense, meticulous detective known for his stellar track record and his disdain for teamwork. Fans of “Law & Order: SVU” will recognize Richard Belzer’s John Munch, who introduced the character in “Homicide” long before “SVU” was set in New York City.

The characters are what make “Homicide” what it is. Attanasio and Fontana have done everything they can to ground their audience in the specificity of Baltimore in the 1990s. The texture of the show is such that you can almost touch the sticky residue on the break room floor or feel the biting cold in the police station when the heat blows in the dead of winter. Some of the discussions about Michael Jordan versus Scottie Pippen and the merits of disgraced Vice President Spiro Agnew are hotly debated. Other topics, like dating after divorce, race and gun violence, remain relevant 31 years later.

Death and murder are not light subjects, but many of the crimes in “Homicide” have a certain brutality to them. Season 1 follows rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), who is haunted by his first case, the murder of an 11-year-old girl, Adena Watson, who is being harassed and sexually assaulted. The murder was based on the real-life death of Latonya Wallace, which Simon wrote about in his book. Since “Homicide” was a network show, it’s jarring to see how much is depicted visually on screen, including Adena’s lifeless body. The case plays out over multiple episodes, with Pembleton being tormented, and it comes to a head in Episode 5, “Three Men and Adena.” The episode is shot almost entirely within the confines of the interrogation room, and the N-word is even used multiple times by the suspect.

The toll of the job is also magnified in the series. Disparate personalities thrown together into a cesspool of death and destruction does not make for a harmonious workplace. Because the characters in “Homicide” are portrayed in their full humanity, the dysfunction of the profession is played out in childish squabbles, angry phone calls and sarcastic remarks. Partnerships like that of Detective Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) and Beau Felton (Billy Baldwin) come and go, sometimes working like a well-oiled machine and sometimes boiling over. Still, crabs and mugs of beer at The Waterfront Bar ultimately provide a balm for the detectives until they’re called to a new crime scene.

Of course, “Homicide” isn’t entirely grim. The show does have some small, cheerful bits. Cases with a hint of lightheartedness are interwoven with more disturbing criminal acts. The first season features an elderly woman who pushes her husband down the stairs when she discovers he’s not as dead as she first suspected. There’s even a witness to another murder who tries to hide from the police by taking refuge in a literal dog kennel. But mostly, there’s just violence.

Today, after the peak of the TV era, there’s disillusionment with what network television has to offer. With streamers and cable channels making edgier programming, the big four networks are focusing on safer shows. But “Homicide: Life on the Street” reminds us that it wasn’t always this way. After all, viewers have a stomach for authenticity. In fact, we crave it.

All seven seasons of “Homicide: Life on the Street” are now streaming on Peacock.