Recently, “Homicide: Life on the Street” has undergone a major renaissance of sorts. The show is now finally available to stream on Peacock, and we have two new podcasts dedicated to the acclaimed series. First, there is “Homicide: Life on the Set” which is hosted by filmmaker and podcaster Chris Carr and Susan C. Ingram who worked as a union camera assistant on “Homicide,” and they have interviewed actors, writers, directors and technicians who worked behind the scenes and have made unforgettable stories to tell. Then there is “Homicide: Life on Repeat” which has actors Reed Diamond and Kyle Secor reviewing each episode of the show from start to finish, and that’s regardless of whether they are in said episode or not. With all this going on, “Homicide” looks to be gaining a new generation of fans and may even become a bigger hit with viewers than ever before.
With this “Homicide” commentary, I focus on the fifth episode of the first season entitled “A Shot in the Dark.” Directed by Bruce Paltrow and written by Jorge Zamacona, it follows multiple plot threads back when the show could get away with that. Stanley Bolander (Ned Beatty) and John Munch investigate the double shooting of a drug dealer, Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) join forces reluctantly to look into a theory regarding Adena Watson’s murder, Tim Bayliss remains convinced that the arabber Risley Tucker murdered Adena and wants to bring him in for questioning, and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito) and Clark Johnson continue to look into the shooting of Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen) who has miraculously survived his nearly fatal wounds. It’s amazing just how much the writers got into one single episode!
In the midst of all this, Bolander seems unable to deal with the aftermath of his date with Dr. Blythe (Wendy Hughes), Felton and Pembleton battle with one another over how they see things, and Bayliss gets revenge at Captain Barnfather for releasing information he shouldn’t have released. Of course, Bayliss still pays a price for going after a superior officer. And Munch? Well, let’s just say he steals the show at the very end.
Please check out the commentary below. “Homicide: Life on the Street” is now available to stream on Peacock, and the entire show is still available on DVD through Shout Factory.
I am back with my latest audio commentary on an episode of “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and the one on display here is “Night of the Dead Living,” a nice little play on words on the title of the classic horror film, “Night of the Living Dead.” It was directed by Michael Lehmann who gave us one of the greatest black comedies ever made, “Heathers” which starred Christian Slater and Winona Ryder. Lehmann also directed “Hudson Hawk” which starred Bruce Willis and proved to be a critical and commercial bomb, but has since become a cult classic of sorts. The teleplay was written by Frank Pugliese who won a WGA Award for his work on this episode. Pugliese is a writer and playwright, and his plays include “Aven’U Boys” which an Obie Award, and he wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film “Infamous.”
“Night of Dead Living” was the third episode of “Homicide’s” first season, but NBC decided to air it as the season finale due to its slow pace and the fact they were trying hard to “woo” more viewers for this show which was already suffering a decline in ratings. For me and many others, the airing of this episode in this order was confusing as hell as it looked as though Tim Bayliss and Frank Pembleton had another chance at closing the Adena Watson case. Watching it now, it feels like the cruelest of teases.
What I love about this particular episode is how unusual it is for “Homicide” let alone any other police drama as it is one without any murders or crimes committed. The detectives are working the night shift during a hot summer night, and Lieutenant Al Giardello is furious because the air conditioning is off in the office and everyone is sweating like crazy to where they are taking off their ties. That is, except for Frank Pembleton who remains as cool as can be despite the heat.
Please check out the commentary track below and let me know what you think about this episode.
So here I am with another commentary track for an episode of “Homicide: Life on the Street.” This one is titled “Ghost of a Chance,” and it is the second episode of the first season. The story is by Tom Fontana, the teleplay was written by Noel Behn, and the episode was directed by Martin Campbell. Campbell would later go on to direct to James Bond films, “Goldeneye” and “Casino Royale.” After the brilliance of “Gone for Goode,” I wasn’t sure the next episode would be anywhere as good. Thankfully, it was.
“Ghost of a Chance” starts off with the murder of Adena Watson, the first case for rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), and the one case which would haunt him the most throughout this series. There are also some other plotlines explored here. John Munch (Richard Belzer) and Stanley Bolander (Ned Beatty) investigate the death of Thomas Doohen whose widow, Jessie (Gwen Verdon), cannot wait to be rid of him, Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) and Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) work to find much-needed evidence in a murder case, and Bolander develops a crush on Carol Blythe (Wendy Hughes) which has him acting rather awkwardly.
We are also introduced to Officer Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen), a character who will become especially important in later episodes.
So here I am with another commentary track after the one I did for “Pump Up The Volume.” But this time, it is for an episode of one of my favorite television shows of all time, let alone of the 1990’s, “Homicide: Life on the Street.” Specifically, the commentary is on this show’s very first episode, “Gone For Goode,” which did a brilliant job of introducing us to various Homicide detectives, and also showed how it was not going to be your usual cop show. Instead, it was initially designed to be one without onscreen violence, something which executive producer and showrunner Tom Fontana thought was crazy, and he quickly signed up with the show as a result.
What hooked me onto this show was the fact it was being developed by Barry Levinson, the Oscar winning filmmaker of “Rain Man.” He also directed the “Gone For Goode” episode and introduced its cinematic style which no other director could direct their way out of.
With this commentary track, I express my thoughts on this episode and the show at large. Upon watching “Gone For Goode,” I was immediately hooked into what this groundbreaking series had to offer, and I did my best to provide as much trivia about its making as I could. I’m not sure there will ever be a perfect commentary track to anything unless it is done by Martin Scorsese or Bruce Campbell, but I would like to think this one comes close. If you say it does, it will do wonders for my fragile ego.
Please feel free to listen to the commentary track below as you watch this episode on your DVD player. At this time, “Homicide: Life on the Street” is not available to stream, most likely due to music rights, but you can purchase the complete series on DVD from Shout Factory. It was previously available in a box set from A&E Home Video, but it has long since gone out of print.
-Clark Johnson from “Homicide: Life on The Street”
“I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way they happened.”
-Bill Pullman from “Lost Highway”
“Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them.”
-from “Crosseyed and Painless” by Talking Heads
The story at the center of “Tabloid” is further proof of how truth can be much stranger than fiction. It is an endlessly entertaining documentary on an utterly bizarre incident from 1977 involving former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney. She talks about falling head over heels in love with a Mormon missionary named Kirk Anderson, and of how he disappeared without a trace after they became engaged.
Joyce spent the next couple of years searching for Kirk, eventually finding him in Ewell, Surrey where he was working at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Desperate to be reunited with him, she flew to England determined to rescue and marry him as she sees her destiny as being with him until death separates them forever. But from there the story splinters into two heavily contrasting versions. Joyce claims the Mormon religion is a cult which brainwashed and robbed Kirk of his free will, and that he went with her willingly upon finding him at the church. However, Kirk later told police he was abducted by Joyce and chained to a bed in a cottage where she seduced and raped him.
Whatever the case, this story exploded in the press and became, as one interviewee called it, “the perfect tabloid story.” With its mix of sex and religion, this case came to be known as “The Mormon Sex in Chains Case” and “The Case of the Manacled Mormon.”
You may come out of “Tabloid” frustrated as it is not made entirely clear who is honest and who is lying, but getting to the truth is not the intention of this documentary. Morris constructed it in a way which tests who and what we believe in and how our perceptions have been molded over time by the media culture more than we ever bother to realize. It almost doesn’t matter what actually happened because the story is so weirdly captivating, and viewers find themselves wanting it to go in a particular direction regardless of whether the facts match up with that direction or not.
John Patrick Shanley was dead on correct when he wrote how doubt is a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. Everyone in “Tabloid” has an inescapable shadow of doubt hovering over everything they say and what they believe to be true. It’s like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books we all read as kids. You know, the ones which tell you to turn to this page or another to where the outcome of your journey remains truly unpredictable.
Seeing the media at work on this “Mormon in Chains” case makes one realize not much has changed in their coverage of events. Back then, the public ate all the lurid details of this absurd story as it touched on those guilty pleasures we are never quick to admit we have. People like to believe they are above “trash” like this, but unconscious minds are always quick to wander to the magazine aisle in the supermarket to peek through the latest issue of the National Enquirer among other magazines which take the truth and manipulate into something wonderfully lurid. We know it is bad for us, but we cannot always keep our morbid fascination in check.
As an interview subject, Joyce McKinney is never boring for one second. At the start of “Tabloid,” she has an endearing quality which makes you want to spend all this time in her company. You will find yourself feeling for her when the world more or less threw her under a bus, and you will not be able to stop empathizing with her even after much of what she says comes into question. You can hear Morris interviewing her in the background, and every other question he asks sounds like, “Oh my god are you kidding me?!”
Still, it does at times feel like Joyce is putting on a performance for us, one which she has rehearsed for decades. Morris said she was the star of her own movie long before he started making this one, and it is easy to see how this is the case. Regardless, you will find yourself wanting to buy her story even as others come up with proof of how she lied.
With all the various facets of her life put up onscreen, you are eager to see where Joyce will take us next as it is unpredictable for those who are not the least bit familiar with this case. Even if she is lying about everything, it’s never less than interesting.
The truth these days is such a malleable thing as everyone shapes it to fit their own needs and beliefs. Others will say we are wrong or lying, but we are quick to defend what we know to be the truth. Many will convince themselves of what is true to where we can no longer be objective about the experience they had. We replay certain moments in our lives over and over again until they seem correct to us. Even Joyce says at one point, “You know you can tell a lie long enough until you believe it.”
What is great about “Tabloid” is how on top it is a love story of the most unusual kind. There is never any doubt that Joyce still loves Kirk after all these years. Even if you feel miles away from truth after watching this documentary, it is safe to say this much is certain.
The Ultimate Rabbit 