Month: October 2009

We’re blasting through Season 7… Keith is watching with us when we can.  Ten reasons I love the show:

1. The writing.  It’s true that the Season 7 stories get more and more oddball, but the writing all the way through is top notch; each character is differentiated and given ample scope.
2. The location work.  Baltimore is a character in the show; its history, people, architecture and skyline are unspeaking presences throughout the series.  The show that broke my heart was the one where Meldrick (Clark Johnson) shows another cop the Underground Railway museum.
3. The actors.  I am trying to think of a bad actor in the show.  With the exception of some minor casting issues on a show by show basis, all is good.  And the actors were able to direct if they wanted to in later episodes.  You can’t tell.  You can’t tell who directed which show.  It’s all really, really good.
4. Lynn F. Kowal’s theme music.  She’s in a band called Starfish Lily now, I just listened and she sounds like a filker.  I know, weird.
5. STELLAR/amazing/properly cast guests: Joan Chen, Neil Patrick Harris, Eric Stoltz, James Earl Jones, Moses Gunn, Robin Williams, Steve Buscemi, Alfre Woodard, Marcia Gay Harden, Lily Tomlin, Peter Gallagher, Chris Rock, Pat Hingle, Wilford Brimley, Steve Allen, Joe Perry, Bruno Kirby, Charles S. Dutton, Kate Walsh, Edie Falco, Vincent D’Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, Luis Guzmán, Steve Burns, Elijah Wood, Fisher Stevens, Jake Gyllenhaal, Lewis Black, Bruce Campbell, Paul Giamatti, Terry O’Quinn, David Morse, John Glover, Terry Kinney, Tony Todd, Charles Durning, Isaiah Washington, Jeffrey Donovan, Jena Malone, and Jerry Stiller.  Not to mention John Waters, twice.  And Austin Pendleton became a semi regular as a Medical Examiner.
6. The set decoration.
7. Yaphet Kotto as Giardello. Yes Andre Braugher was the breakout actor, but Kotto demonstrates such breadth and subtlety that he deserves a special mention.  Jeff says, “Everything I know about managing people I stole from Gee.” You could do much worse, even if he is fictional.
8. The subject matters covered.  In its construction and deconstruction of – and wilful assaults on – American concepts of identity, race, class, gender and sexuality, the show is, ten years after its death, still able to kick cultural doors in.  A bisexual male character with some nuance?  Mixed race and white characters debating race issues without going for the cheap shot?  How many women were involved at senior levels of the show? zow.
9. The use of and references to drugs and alcohol in the show.  From the Waterfront – the bar across the street owned by three characters – to Munch (as played by Richard Belzer) continually raving about the war on drugs, it’s all unsentimental and accurate.
10. Special mention must be made of the use of music in the show.  I saw this series after I saw Buffy, and I have to say that Homicide did a better job of integrating both new and old pop tunes into the fabric of the series.  The background music is also great.