Part 4: The DVDs

This review looks at both the A&E region 0 US release and the Fremantle region 2 UK release.

Shot on Super-16mm, the show broke with the clean, brightly lit look of most previous TV dramas for a vérité documentary style that was regarded as gritty and even dingy on its first airing, emphasised by the decision to partially drain the colour in post production. The faux-vérité look has since become a style in itself, and I have to admit my expectations were not too high for the series' DVD release. When it did appear, I was genuinely surprised at how good it actually looked, and I tip my hat to A&E for making such a fine job of the transfer, which keeps the blacks solid and displays an impressive level of detail without overly enhancing the inevitable film grain.

The series' belated arrival on UK DVD has been handled by Fremantle, and there will doubtless be a few groans over the NTSC to PAL transfer, but I can't see that there would be any choice here – the incorporation of video footage into later episodes would suggest that the final cut of each episode, as with any number of other series, only exists in high band tape form. The resulting motion blur with fast movement of action or camera is kept to a minimum and I, for one, was pleased with how good Fremantle's transfer looks. For the most part the detail and colour appear as good as the A&E discs, although close examination suggests, inevitably, that the unprocessed NTSC of the A&E transfers just has the edge.

Both releases are nicely packaged and have had care taken on the menus, although the classy animated drifts of the Fremantle release are perhaps not quite as in-keeping with the style of the show as A&E's more basic but effective re-creation of the Big Board look.

The Dolby 2.0 stereo is clean and clear on both releases with some surprisingly vivid separation at times, and music always sounds good.

Only Fremantle's disc has English subtitles for the hearing impaired, although these sometimes can be misleading – the process of shortening rapidly delivered speeches for clarity sometimes alters the dialogue enough to change the emphasis and even meaning. An example of this can be found in Beau's rant to Kay about her giving up smoking – where the dialogue is "I don't want you counting the number of days you've gone without a cigarette when you're supposed to be watching my back" becomes "Stop counting the days you go without a cigarette. Just watch my back."

Here the A&E release really has the edge over the Fremantle package, which is completely free of bonus features. Whether the features that are included on the A&E discs are enough to persuade you to cough up the extra dosh to import it (Fremantle's release is already being discounted on-line) is another matter. The following extra features are all from the A&E US release.

Commentary with Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana on 'Gone for Goode'
Although not the busiest of commentaries and containing a fair amount of information that fans will already be aware of, this is still a welcome extra that provides a small window into the production itself and touches on a number of interesting aspects, from the network's reaction to the show to the stylistic decisions and how groundbreaking (and thus for the network and some audiences, how problematic) they were.

Cast & Crew Biographies
Concise biographies for Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana, Daniel Baldwin, Andre Braugher, Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Jon Polito and Kyle Secor.

Superbowl XXVII Commercials for Season One Premiere (1:32)
Two nicely edited teasers undermined a bit by inappropriate music.

Homicide: Life at the Start – An Interview with Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana (10:49)
This is actually a featurette, narrated by Richard Belzer, that includes interview material with Levinson and Fontana and provides a neatly compact history of the evolution of the series, and briefly covers Levinson's approach – including the distinctive camerawork and editing – and some of the casting decisions.

To Catch a Killer: Homicide Detectives (45:57)
This is an episode of A&E's signature documentary series American Justice that looks at the work of city Homicide detectives, concentrating on three specific cases. It's interesting enough, but is relentlessly voice-over driven in a way that UK documentaries tend not to be and I found it hard to stay locked in until the end. Disappointingly, we don't get to know the detectives in the way an accompaniment to Homicide might lead you to expect (or hope) you would.

Homicide: Life on the Street Song Listing
A useful episode-by-episode listing and full details for all of the music tracks used in the first two series.

Even going back to the first series for the umpteenth time, it still feels fresh and new and exciting, despite the number of other series and films that have borrowed from it since. Crucially, it still scores a bulls-eye as drama, thanks to sometimes superlative writing, innovative handling, and a string of totally committed and convincing performances. It remains my favourite cop show, bar none, and, despite some serious competition, my favourite American TV series to date. The programme landed on the run and some of its best ever episodes are right here in seasons one and two. If you've never caught it then do yourself a favour and do so, and when you recognise all of those cinematic techniques that you seem to see everywhere now, just remember that Homicide did most of them first and best.

As for the DVDs, well it depends largely on whether you want those extra features or not, although cost could also play a factor here, and will do so more dramatically in the series that follow, assuming Fremantle also make them available in the UK.

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