A Televisual Feast

The most interesting thing–how many posts have I started with “the most interesting thing”? Ten, twenty. It’s such a fake lead in. Paul Attanasio does everything he can to make “Homicide” an anti-procedural off the bat (is that better?). The pilot episode features three to five murders, eight detectives, and no actually mysteries. More time is spent with the detectives talking about their job than doing it.

Having read the source book (David Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets)–and I read the book a long time ago and this episode takes the most memorable moments and uses them. There’s not a lot of procedural going on, not a lot of mystery, and a fair amount of homicides.

It’s a strange pilot–trying to introduce nine characters, it forgets to give the episode much content. It reads better in the synopses than it plays. Though it is, however, beautifully paced and giving the illusion of being content rich. I’m also not wild about Attanasio’s setup of Frank… the moment he needs to shine, his interview in the Box, he instead comes off as fabricating evidence. The audience never knows he’s right until the confession, which means way too much time is spent judging Frank. Especially after he’s running around like a madman fifteen minutes earlier.

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