They just wrapped up Season 5 on Singapore TV. I had to cry. This is the beginning of the end isn't it? No more Kay? How can it be?? I was so happy when the local TV station started showing H:LTS 4 times a week, late night.... I loved the show back then, even more NOW.

I lived in Bawlmer during the early years, then moved to France and missed Season 6 and on. I never saw the dreck it became.... but that Season 5 finale was so painful knowing what I know now. They aren't going on to show Season 6, I'm getting L&O:SVU now. Oh well. I guess I gotta find some other way of watching the acclaimed "Subway" episode.

*sigh*

Add me to the list of peeps that didn't like the fallout of the LM shooting. Maybe that was the point, bad things happen to good people, maybe it was the Falsone, but I really hated the way they took Mike down.

I remember wanting two points of view during that long, disastrous Mahoney-aftermath arc:

I wanted to ask Clark Johnson (out of curiosity rather than anger) to explain Meldrick's motivations as he played them. Was it purely a matter of self-protection? Morality? Something personal between him and Kellerman (or him and Stiles) that I might have missed? I'm usually one to see both sides of a coin, but something was off there...I normally wouldn't use a story arc as the springboard for intense dislike of what was one of my favorite characters on my favorite TV show.

I also wondered (and still do) how city cops -- and I'm sure that almost any large city would apply -- reacted to the arc. Were the parties involved being "real"? Did they find the storyline offensive? Maybe pure fiction?

Well, I'm not a cop and I don't play one on teevee, but I didn't find it realistic, not at all! I think it was just evidence of the piss poor writing that was being done at that point, since there was no real history of why the cops didn't back up Kellerman.

Based on the previous seasons and the characters developed, there is no way they would have ratted out Kellerman to the slug slime that was Falsone, as he was introduced. He was basically brought in as a spy, and they would have closed ranks further against him, not talked to him.

My opinion, anyway, but the show started to rot the minute Falsone stepped foot in the squad room. When Bayliss was allowed his monumental peccadillos, they were minutes away from the maggots eating the show's cadaverous eyeballs out.

Oops, here it is 2004 and I don't hate Falsone/Seda any less than I did in 2003. Well, there ya go!

What is it with Tom Fontana, anyway? The minute he gets past the fourth or fifth season of any of his shows it all goes to shit. It's like he's sick of the show and has started to hate it, so he's deliberately trying to make the viewers hate it too. Why? Why? Why?

Eliot, maybe he tutored at the David E. Kelley school of "How to Sabotage Your Own Show' when you've had enough?

I agree with all of your sentiments, stoneyburke. For comparison's sake, I also remember being really surprised to find out that many cops supported the realism of the early Greg Medavoy character in NYPD Blue, whereas each week numerous Medavoy moments would make me say "There's no way a cop would act like that." Thus, I'm curious as to their take on the Kellerman/Falsone/Lewis/Stivers dynamic. Personally, I remain utterly skeptical of the way it played out from a reality-reflection standpoint.

And this is all external to my opinion that at that point, Kellerman's character was more interesting than Lewis, Stivers and Falsone put together. Score another point for self-destructiveness.

Crossover alert!
TNT will be showing the Law and Order/ Homicide crossover Baby its you on Wednesday January 7th starting at 8pm. Also there's an interview with Melissa Leo about her role in 21 grams in this weeks people magazine. Enjoy!

Foxy Roxie, do you know whether TNT will show both the L&O ep as well as the HLotS's ep? In lieu of that, does anyone know what TNT's website is to look that info up? I'm having zero luck on a search.

Here's something you might find interesting. I was watching a movie called Love and a Bullet on HBO and one of the characters is supposed to be a Homicide fan. In fact he says that Yaphet Kotto is the finest actor in television.

Two things that came to mind after watching Disk 3:

1) Why did Howard choose Pembleton to be the recipient of her (detailed) gushing when she began seeing Danvers? Was it because he had the only other superior case-closing percentage?

2) After rejecting the promotion offer, we see Pembleton make an effort to hang with his shiftmates...and be welcomed. As far as I can tell, that development was completely put aside afterwards. Ultimately, it was probably a good idea to keep him almost completely distant from the others, but I did get the feeling that the plot point was left hanging.

I don't know for sure this time, but in the past TNT has shown both the L&O and H:LOTS episodes when it airs the crossovers in Prime Time. I say again, TNT, if you want to be the place for drama, you must start showing H:LOTS.

TNT is showing both. TNTs schedule for the week

I always interpreted that whole scene as Howard having a whale of a time yanking Frank's chain. There weren't a whole lot of things that could get Frank flustered, and I think that was as close as anyone got. Priceless, priceless dialog and delivery!



If memory serves, from the very first episode onwards Frank was always portrayed as distant from the other detectives. I vaguely recall Beau going on about Frank's tie or shirt as an illustration that he wasn't one of the guys. I think once the point was made, and the character development maintained that consistency, it wasn't necessary to bring it up again -- but that's just my eleven cents.

According to my TiVo, Court TV is airing another Homicide mini-marathon (6 episodes) on January 19th. Unfortunately, I think all the episodes are from the final season. I saw the name "Falsone" and immediately shrieked and clapped my hands over my eyes or I would have made a list for you guys. Maybe I'll go back later when I have an empty stomach.

Also, some Fontana news from his website:



I don't know what "FBC" is; I think it's just a typo.

I think FBC stands for Fox Broadcasting Corporation. Usually, people just say Fox - don't know why they didn't here.

I'm assuming those last-season Homicide epis are not the Meloni ones - you wouldn't hold out on us, would you, Eliot?

Oh! Fox. That's right. Duh.

Here are the eps, beginning at 9 a.m. Unfortunately, they're the last 6 episodes of the series, plus one L&O crossover:

Zen and the Art of Murder
Sideshow (also being run on TNT at 9 p.m. on 1/14 with its L&O counterpart at 8)
Self Defense
Identity Crisis
Lines of Fire
The Why Chromosome
Identity Crisis
Forgive Us Our Trespasses

Damnation, that creates a viewing conflict of disasterous proportions! USA is airing three episode of SVU on Wednesday night. Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck. Cabot and Stabler or Bayliss and Lewis? Cabot and Stabler or Baliss and Lewis? Arrrghh! Damn me and my pathetic tv lusts!

Perhaps the question should be "Munch or Munch?"

Okay, I'm starting to have an identity crisis now. I just read Elliot's post and thought to myself, "Damn, I'm witty."

Then I realized it wasn't me.

BWAH! Heh! Just remember one of you is a fanatic and the other a couch potato. :)

I'm both, actually, which speaks none too highly of my social life. But it is kind of cool to think of myself as "Eliot the Fanatic." It makes me feel all evil and shit.

Oh, and topic? Falsone sucks.

You know, that was the first, and only episode of Homicide that put me to sleep, it was so boring. Of course it could've been the fact I watched it a 1:00 in the morning;-). I was watching Smoke gets in your eyes on dvd today and I noticed John Waters played the bartender at the end. John Waters also played the murder brought back to Baltimore by Dective Logan in Law and Disorder. I thought Tom Fontana had a rule about not recyling actors on Homicide. Why the exception?

Working on it.

And Falsone most definitely sucks.

He came in when Felton's death was being investigated, right?

I'm still not happy with Felton's fate, but that's just me being melancholy.

According to my TiVo, Kyle Secor will guest-star on CSI next week, Jan. 14.

Watched "Black and Blue" (Frank and G at odds over Frank's conviction that a cop out-and-out murdered a small-time dealer) last night. It was the one ep I hadn't seen and the one that's turned out to be my all-time favorite. It also heightened my disgust with most of post-Luther H:LOTS -- Falsone, Michael Michelle...oy.

No, he came in with the Luther Mahoney shooting, to rat out Mikey Kellerman and have all the other buds suddenly turn on their brother. Bullshit. Fontana had his brains scrambled by the morons at NBC when he let this happen.

I hate Seda and Falsone as much as I did seven years ago. I saw his slimey, slug ooze trailing face last night and I wished him worse than a painful demise. His acting sucks, he can't even walk intelligently. His stance is despicable, his delivery is moronic, and his face is smackable. When he leaned into and put his arm around that woman at the station house, I wanted to burn my clothes in empathy for her. When poor Sam Waterson had to endure a conversation with the little shit, I would have been glad to help Sam beat the living crap out of him.

I had to turn it off. Even though Frank and Munch (in a white shirt) and Tim and Meldrick...beautiful, gorgeous Meldrick...were there, the very fact that they had to allow that prick the ability to walk on the same sound stage and breathe the same air as themselves made my skin crawl, and my eyes water.

I hate him, I really, really, really hate him.

And I always will.

I was OK (in a "Whatever!" sort of way) with Falsone prior to the shooting and what came of it...but I hear and feel your pain, stoneyburke...and couldn't say so nearly as eloquently as you did.

So what exactly did Fontana have against Kellerman / Reed Diamond anyway?

Good question, and thanks, Elliot.

I'm not sure. I know there was a directive to 'youth and sex' it up re 'Homicide' (similar to 'Boomtown'), but not sure why it took the direction it did with Diamond. I do know that Melissa Leo butted heads with TMTB, and she was treated like crap.

I guess the viewer never really knows all the goings on with the media, but it's as chock full of politics as big business is. It's no more "ars gratia artis" than it ever was, even when the lion roared in the '30s.

Word, stoneyburke. Because I could never stand to watch them twice, my memories of Falsone inclusive episodes are not the best, but didn't Jack say, "I think you can do anything you want to do," or something like that? I remember being infuriated that the viewers were being forcefed more, "You will love Falsone! Love him!" bullshit.

Die Falsone! Die!

Actually, Falsone first appeared during the Felton murder investigation. He was working in auto at the time and was investigating the same people that Felton was working undercover trying to catch. He looked slightly different, with a bad greasy mullet, but it was him nonetheless.

Falsone then subsequently showed up in the first episode of season 6 (the beginning of the end) as one of the transfers into the Homicide unit. I always wanted Kellerman, who had been working in auto, to come up with some sort of dirt on Falsone that he could just burn him with. I liked Mikey in season 4 and 5, but when he became hostile and surly towards Falsone in season 6, I liked him ALOT more.

I remember that we first saw Kellerman in Arson at the end of S3, when he and Frank differed on the course of an investigation of a fatal fire. He was brought into Homicide by G at the beginning of S4. Was he also involved with Auto at some point? I don't recall.

The fire episodes were actually the season openers of S4. G brought him into Homicide at the end of that investigation.

I think Mikey went to Auto during that "rotate to different squads" thing the brass came up with (and the writers used to get rid of Howard).

Wow, guess Falsone/Seda opened up a lot of old wounds last night. On another board, an homage to 'Homicide', a poster suggested a wonderful idea for a dvd feature on season 6 or 7. The production gods could interview fans of the show about their hatred for Falsone, and then show it to Seda.

I especially liked the last part. IF he has managed to learn how to read, I would hope he's seen how the 'Homicide' fans feel about him. If not, the thought of Seda sitting in a room hearing our bile warms the cockles of my heart.

Thanks. I'll stop using time descriptors, since I'm running under 50% for accuracy.

Eeeeeeeee! Must tape CSI next week! I guess i'm the only on this board who really doesn't mind Falsone. He isn't my favorite character, but I don't hate him with a thousand suns either.

As as for what Fontana had against Reed Diamond...I don't know that he had anything against Reed Diamond. The whole Luther Mahoney thing, though WAY overdone, did make the character more interesting.

Following the Mahoney shooting, I believe Kellerman had to deal with (1) allegations of being corrupt in his Arson days; (2) heavy pressure to rat on other cops; (3) Falsone; (4) Falsone; (5) Falsone; (6) abandonment by Lewis, who has his own history of turning his back on a murder that seemed somehow justifiable, and Stivers, to a much less important extent; and (7) the revenge designs of Mahoney's sister. Perhaps I missed some other plotline as well, but for me that sufficiently qualifies as TV character assassination.

I will admit that my opinions are colored by the fact that I liked Kellerman a ton, and that (as Lewis and Stivers agreed at the time) I did not specifically have an ethical problem with the Mahoney shooting given the context and circumstances, though I doubt I would've shot him outright myself.

Oh, same here, no problem with the fact that he was shot, but I also as a cop would have backed up the shooter cop, 100%. Gee, 'cause like some day I might need my ass covered, ya know?

Nah, this wasn't believable at all.

Not character assassination so much as stupid moronic writers and producers. In the pre-Falsone days, I believe, the entire storyline would have been handled better. The idiots at the helm after Seda came on acted as if they never even LOOKED at the old episodes. No, Tim never WOULD have paraded his homosexuality, never, nope, sorry don't buy it.

So this arc could have been a good, dramatic one, used to explore all the foibles and humanities and demons inherent in characters in any good drama. 'Boomtown' had started to go there, before it was snuffed out.

As it was, it might have character assassination, but only because the dimbulbs behind the scenes didn't know how to write 'Homicide' anymore. Can you say 'peach scene', which gloriously, happily I have not seen to this day. I believe Leo was deliberately kicked out, but with Kellerman I really don't think they knew what to do with the wonderful ensemble cast on 'Homicide' anymore, so they had to come up with cheap, unbelievable storylines. Oh, and incidentally a storyline to make their new 'find', slimey Seda, prominent.

Apropos, though, that there are two 'asses' in 'assassination'. In the case of the MTB behind 'Homicide', there were many, many, many more.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD. This bothers me so much. He won't even wear a leather jacket in "A Many Splendored Thing" and talks about how some people pervert love and how it's disgusting. And then in "Hate Crimes," he's uncomfortable and weirded out because the guy is thought to be gay. Even if he was closeted and gay then, early-Bayliss never ever paraded anything.

Exactly, Benji. The attitude of the networks towards long time viewers of an exceptional drama is akin to that of big business towards their long time employees. They just don't CARE!

Past practices and company policies are discarded in favor of the bottom line. In the case of 'Homicide', past characterizations were discarded in favor of jamming Falsone down our throats, as if we could handle his presence in addition to the inconsistencies his character brought out in our beloved ensemble.

But, it was a precursor to the disregard being shown by current cable stations, who now think an intelligent viewer will LIKE a pseudo-reality show in place of an oft rerun British police procedural.

Remember when it was subtly IMPLIED that Tim might have feelings for Frank, feelings that unspeakable (to Tim) and weren't thrown in our face, that the viewer had to THINK about, for cripe's sake? However, no credit is given for "older" intelligence or intuition these days, not in business, not in media.

The mantra is '18-34', period, the end. Which, imho, is an insult to those in the 18-34 age bracket with discriminating tastes.

Word, stoneyburke! That is hands down the grossest scene I have seen and I've watched X-Files, Buffy and Tom pulling his tongue out in that awful Voyager ep...

Why am I not remembering this? In what episode (or season, at least) did it take place?

Yeah, I'd like to know that to. And what the hell was so awful about it?

Keeping it vague enough to not squick lots of people out (as well as to reflect my hazy memory of it...)

It's a short scene between Falsone and Ballard, during one of the episodes where G had told them to break it off or one of them would have to transfer. Somebody tells Falsone about the erotic nature of eating a peach (which I understand, if don't appreciate). He's not sure, tests it while Ballard is within eyesight, and she melts (not that I got any of their thing in the first place).

Not sure if I did more harm than good...I disagree with the premise (and the relationship), so it didn't work for me. Waste of time.

Not to veer off topic but I must pose the question (because I can't remember the response last time) which that reminded me of: I've been watching my DVDs and I must admit that I think Bolander is a complete waste of a character. SO much time was spent on his relationship with Blythe, who suddenly vanished and was replaced by Juliana Margulies. Was there any point to either of these storylines? They are absolutely the most annoying thing ever to rewatch. A solid episode like Son of a Gun is utterly ruined by the stupid moments with Blythe AND the stupid moments with Bolander's neighbor. At least that romance was age appropriate. I found the second one revoltingly May/December.

Thanks for the peach clarification, dbrugg. Without having to see it, I agree both with your characterization and with those who referred to it as some derivative of "gross".

Benji, my guess about the Bolander storylines is that they were trying to highlight and humanize the character to showcase Ned Beatty -- easily the biggest "name" in the cast early on. That's just a guess. Secondarily, perhaps Bolander's stabs at relationships were attempts to mine available contrasts between him and Munch. I was also curious as to the relative lack of attention paid to the elimination of Blythe.

It looks sudden on the DVDs, but recall that almost a year went by between Blyth's last episode and the paltry 4-episode season 2 that featured Juliana. Perhaps the producers couldn't get Wendy Hughes to sign on again when the show's fate was so uncertain.

Personally, I love the interactions between Bolander and Munch. Beatty played "the big man" to perfection. Probably one of the more realistic characters in terms of age, experience, and background. (I believe he was modeled on Don Worden in the book -- is that right?)

Yup...you've got it.

Speaking of the book; I read it after watching the show and learning it was based on that. The whole time I was reading, in my head, I was contrasting the characters and cases and trying to match them up w/ the show. I actually have no point just I enjoyed both the series and the book.