By One of the most ground-breaking Emmy-winning series of all time, “Homicide: Life on the Street,” may be finally coming to streaming.
On Monday night author David Simon, whose book inspired the NBC cop drama and paved the way for his work with HBO’s “The Wire,” revealed that the main hurdle holding it back had finally been cleared.
That hurdle? Music rights issues and clearance costs. In his post on X, he said: “Word is that NBC has managed to finally secure the music rights necessary to sell Homicide: Life On The Streets to a streaming platform.”
In the wake of the post, a rep for NBCUniversal confirmed to TV Line: “We’re currently in the midst of resolving the music rights issues for Homicide: Life on the Street and remastering the series to HD and UHD (for the first time).”
Simon added in his response that we have to thank original producers Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson and Gail Mutrux for the effort to get it done as: “They took the point. They did the work here.”
Created by Paul Attanasio, the series ran for seven seasons from 1993-1999 and chronicled the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit and famously avoided so many tropes of cop shows that came before.
Containing a pervasive sense of bleak realism, it was shot on location with mostly hand-held cameras and could interweave multiple storylines within a single episode as opposed to a ‘single case of the week’.
The show, always on the verge of cancellation but managing to save itself every time until the end, was the first series ever to win three of the prestigious Peabody Awards for best drama.
The series introduced Richard Belzer’s iconic Det. John Munch character which he has subsequently played across many shows. Other regular cast included Andre Braugher, Yaphet Kotto, Clark Johnson, Melissa Leo, Michelle Forbes, Ned Beatty, Reed Diamond, Kyle Secor, Jon Polito, Željko Ivanek and Giancarlo Esposito.
The series topped a notable 2023 poll of classic series not yet on streaming. Two of the titles on that list, “Moonlighting” and “Northern Exposure,” have subsequently made the jump. Others that have not include “Ed,” “Knot’s Landing,” “China Beach,” “Sisters,” “Boston Public,” “Chicago Hope” and “Murphy Brown”.
The post NBC Clearing “Homicide: LotS” For Streaming appeared first on Dark Horizons.
