‘Law & Order’ has nothing on this near‑perfect crime series

Homicide: Life on the Street, which premiered in 1993, follows detectives in a fictional Baltimore Police Department homicide unit and was based on a non-fiction book by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, who spent a year shadowing the real unit and served as consultant and co-producer.

The ensemble included Lieutenant Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto), Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin), Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), and John Munch (Richard Belzer), among others. From the start, the series aimed to show the brutal reality of police work: the psychological toll, cynicism, paperwork, long interrogations, dark humor and often quarreling partners.

Simon captured that sensibility bluntly: “The greatest lie, I think, in dramatic TV is the cop who stands over a body and pulls up the sheet and mutters, ‘Damn’ and looks down sadly.

homicide, baltimore, david simon, baltimore sun, law &, frank pembleton, john munch, andre braugher, yaphet kotto, crime drama