Homicide Life on the Street - The Complete Seasons 1 & 2 (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)Back in the mid-1990's, I was connected with an organization called "Viewers for Quality Television," or "VQT." It was a group of people championing television programs, especially dramas, that didn't get much attention from the Emmy's, but should have.
"Homicide Life: Life on the Streets" was one of our shows we fought for. While NBC stuck with it, often halfheartedly, for several years while erratically scheduling it alternately in good time slots (following the Superbowl one week, then not showing it for several weeks), then moving it to a different night every couple of months, e.g. January 1993 (Sunday), Feb-March 1993 (Wednesday), then keeping it off the air until January 1994 (Thursday), and then moving it after a few months in October 1994 (Friday), it was doomed to fail, but we watched it anyway...hoping that we'd get to see another episode.
The characters were an odd collection of people who cared about what they did, and we as viewers cared about them: Ned Beatty as Stanley (the Big Man), Richard Belzer as Munch, Daniel Baldwin as Beau Felton, Andre Braugher as Frank, and Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Giardello (Gee).
SPOILER ALERT! I could write ten pages about wonderful moments from this show: The "small talk" of Stanley and Munch. The pain Frank felt after the death of Crosetti in December 1994. the shooting of Felton, Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) and Stan in January 1995. The warmth of the snowball fight at the end of one show in December with Christy Hyde singing "Have yourself a very Merry Christmas" in the background.
This was great Television that through the advent of DVD we'll be able to watch again and again. Which only goes to show you that in a world that often, from time-to-time, looks like it is going to hell in a handbasket, something wonderful, like these first two years of Homicide, come along.

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One of the most critically acclaimed shows in TV history, Homicide: Life on the Street reinvigorated a tired genre by focusing on the grueling work of solving murders instead of an endless succession of bloody crimes and car chases.Inspired by David Simon's Edgar Award-winning account of Baltimore homicide detectives and brought to television by writer Paul Attanasio (Gideon's Crossing) and director Barry Levinson (Analyze This, The Perfect Storm, Oz), Homicide boasted a powerhouse ensemble cast featuring Ned Beatty (Network, Deliverance), Yaphet Kotto (Alien, Midnight Run), Richard Belzer (Law & Order: SVU), and breakout star Andre Braugher (Frequency, Gideon's Crossing).Now this Emmy and Peabody Award winner debuts on DVD with this collector's set featuring all 13 episodes from the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street.

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Dickens of London (1977) Review

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(More customer reviews)I never saw this when originally played on television back in the '70's. If I did, I'm sure my memory would have given me doubts in purchasing this multi-DVD set.
It begins pretty much on the right track, showing Charles Dickens as a young boy with his father and their "adventures" together. Much of the concentration tends to be on his father as much as on Charles, almost in a comedic way, showing the influence he had on his son.
It is pretty much right on, giving us a glimpse of the early life of this Victorian author, including his unfortunate occupation in a blacking factory. No child labor laws here!
Next we see Charles as a young man, beginning his career as a writer. It shows us how he met his future wife, Catherine Hogarth, his obsessive love toward his sister-in-law, who, sadly, dies before the age of twenty, the strange relationship he and Kate had, and, if true, his own - dare I say it - anal personality. Yes, he did not come off as the nicest of people. Throughout these middle episodes we see Mr. Dickens' behavior continue to become rather eccentric, and not necessarily in a good way. He grows to be, at least in my eyes, an unlikable person, one who can snap at any moment; one who does not treat his wife nor his friends in an agreeable manner. (Although Kate comes off as a bit of a winer. Then again, he did marry her and not her sister, right?). This also shows the famous author as a womanizer, an unfortunate truth. And, according to this, much of his flirting was thrown directly into Kate's face. If this is true, she deserved to be a winer. I am assuming here that this is correct, seeing that the Charles Dickens Museum folk gave their support for this project.
Then this biography takes some odd twists and turns, especially devoting a complete (wasted) episode on a bizarre encounter with Edgar Allen Poe, and another, well, WASTED episode where he does magic tricks. A bit of editing could have put both of these encounters onto one episode.
The series, as a biography, ends a bit quicker than expected in that, for his earlier novels such as The Old Curiosity Shop or the Pickwick Papers, more time is spent than, say, Martin Chuzzlewit. And the fact that the importance of Chuzzlewit selling poorly was imperative to the writing of "A Christmas Carol" was barely touched upon.
And that's where the series ends, except for another wasted episode called 'Memories,' the very last of the series. Why was this last episode, which harkens back to young boy Charles, even made? Except for showing the death of his father, it's useless as a biography.
It's these wasted episodes, which, for taking up so much of our time, had little bearing on his life, that anger me. I would have rather had the drama show the complete reason in his writing "Carol" and the after effects it had rather than the three wasted episodes I mentioned.
All in all, this is OK to watch once, but not worthy of your hard-earned cash in a purchase.

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Featuring a stellar cast, this 13-part Masterpiece Theatre mini-series traces the extraordinary life of Charles Dickens (portrayed by Roy Dotrice) from his penniless childhood in Chatham and London during the 1820s, to the unprecedented success he later enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic. This 5 DVD Set includes the bonus disc An Audience with Charles Dickens, a recreation of Dicken's public performance of "A Christmas Carol," starring celebrated actor Simon Callow.

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