Cheap Homicide Life on the Street - The Complete Season 3 (DVD) (Braugher) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Homicide Life on the Street - The Complete Season 3

Best season of TV's best crime drama ever
In my opinion, season three, the first full season of Homicide, was the best. The ratings had been anemic in seasons one and two, so that it was often called during that time "the best TV show you're not watching". Hoping to improve ratings, NBC insisted on a number of changes, both cosmetic and thematic. Unfortunately, talented but unphotogenic veteran actor Jon Polito was ordered dropped from the cast as the network clamored for more on-screen romance and violence. In order to have episodes the network considered more sensational air during "sweeps" periods, NBC sometimes aired episodes out of order, often to the detriment of story arcs that had developed over several episodes. Probably the most infamous of such gaffes during this season was NBC's decision to broadcast an episode featuring the program's first sex scene ("A Model Citizen") prior to the airing of the much acclaimed episode, "Crosetti"; it was in this latter hour that the death of Detective Steve Crosetti, Jon Polito's character, was revealed and explained. The detective had been in Atlantic City on vacation since the end of the second season's four episodes. For reasons never fully explained or understood, especially considering Crosetti's deep religious beliefs mentioned on the show during the first two seasons, he returns to Baltimore and kills himself rather than return to his job. As a result of this deviation from the producers' intended order, viewers of "A Model Citizen" found out from a comment made by his ex-partner, detective Meldrick Lewis, merely that Crosetti had died but not how or when. Fortunately, the DVD set remedies this and has the episodes in the order they were intended to be aired. <
>This season also featured a trilogy of episodes ("The City That Bleeds," "Dead End," and "End Game") in which three detectives are seriously wounded as a result of a gunman's ambush, two of them almost fatally; meanwhile, the rest of the unit grapples with this reminder of their own mortality as they hunt for the perpetrator. What makes it even worse - if that is possible - is that the detectives were at a completely wrong address at the time of the shooting due to an administrative typo on the arrest warrant. These "cliffhanger" episodes were intended to cause the network execs to decide to let Homicide finish out its season, in spite of its ratings, and they did the trick. <
>Isabella Hoffmann is added to the cast this year as the new night shift commander, Megan Russert. Although she was added by the network for all the wrong reasons - to "pretty up" the cast - she is an outstanding actress and a welcome addition throughout her tenure. Russert misses detective work, though, and in the Christmas episode "All Through the House" she joins Meldrick on an investigation into the murder of a material witness when she discovers she knows something about the victim's case. During this same episode Munch and Bolander investigate the death of a man in a Santa Claus suit and Munch spends the evening with a child they believe is the victim's son. Munch is trying to hide from the boy what he believes is his father's fate, but is finally about to tell him what he thinks has happened when Bolander returns with the boy's father, bruised but OK. It turns out that the murder victim had mugged the boy's father and stolen his Santa suit only to be mugged and murdered himself later that night. <
>In one of the series' best season finales, "Gas Man", Bruno Kirby stars as a recently released ex-con who is out to kill detective Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) because he had helped lock him up years ago. Kirby plays a loser who, years ago, had falsely claimed to be a qualified repairman so that he could earn a few quick bucks by repairing a gas heater. His faulty repair work causes an explosion and the death of the family whose heater he repaired, and he is angry that he was made a "test case" and tried and convicted of the family's deaths. At the end of the show his plan of revenge has seemed to work out, and he is ready to murder Frank, but ultimately he is all talk and cannot go through with it. The final line of the episode, delivered by Pembleton, is typical of his Shakespearean musings. He is told that he is lucky that the ex-con did not kill him. He responds by saying "Luck had nothing to do with it. God reached down and graced a fool with wisdom." Ultimately, we never know if Frank is talking about himself-for how he handles himself in the situation, or the ex-con for realizing that killing Frank will solve nothing. <
>These episodes are typical of the high quality drama, often with a sense of irony, you'll experience in this third season of Homicide. So, if you liked seasons one and two, I know you'll love this one too. Highly recommended. <
>P.S. I am reviewing season three here because I have the room to go into details. However, if you already know you like the entire series, seasons 1-7 are now selling as a package set on Amazon for about $350. This will give you considerable savings over buying the seasons one at a time.

Absolutely incredible.
I really don't have terms glowing enough to describe this season of Homicide. Smart, funny, heartwrenching and thought-provoking, this season is television at its absolute best. Of all the shows I've seen over the years, nothing is better than this.