I have never seen an Episode. Is/Was it good?
I wonder who will to show their bare a$$ in the finale, it's only fitting they all drop their drawers at once and moon us.
I watched about a half hour of it waiting for an "episode" to start. Then I noticed that they called it "tribute" so I turned it off.
As a guy who is a bit too fat, a bit too bald and a really poor dresser, I can really connect with Sipowitz.....
I have watched very few series from first episode to last and this was one of them, Hill Street Blues being another. I thought it was great from beginning to end. Without Sipowitz, this drama would never have lasted. There's a big hole on Tuesday evenings now.
I love this show and watched it religiously for years. For a major series its "finality" has been pretty low-key. That, plus the way it ended, makes me wonder if it might not return, maybe in a slightly different form, at a later date.
But if tonight was it, it went out well.
Possibly the greatest NYC TV show of all time. Except for the Odd Couple, of course! And, oh, Kojak, I've got a soft spot for that one too.
Thanks for putting this thread up, I'm really pretty emotional about this whole thing!
Homicide was my favorite show.
What a great show! Yes, it was past its prime. (Then again, Gunsmoke went on for 20 years!) But I still thought it was better than most other shows on TV, even now. (I don't watch much TV, so I may be wrong.)
The Dennis Franz character held his own against "stars" David Caruso and Jimmy Smits, and came to be the absolute center of the series. (I doubt it was planned that way when the show was first created.) The show had its excesses, faults, etc. (sometimes gratuitous "shock value" and repetitive plot lines over the years), but at its best (which was frequently) it was really worthwhile.
I thought the detailed character portrayals were what drove the show. I read a review once that said that Sipowitz (sp?) was the only character you could "smell" on television - he was that real. I thought the most gripping episodes were where his son was killed and he hit bottom. Strong stuff!
To me, the ending left too many things kind of "unresolved." But the creator said that they did not want to go out with a bang. I think his (almost) exact words were that life in the precinct goes on, but we just don't get to visit every week. It's interesting to me how the series both started and ended sort of showing "stories in progress" at the precinct, yet in each case giving a good idea of what came before and would follow later in the lives and careers of the characters.
Of course, it's just a TV show, so there ARE no lives or careers out there to think about. It goes without saying! But the fact that I even think that way shows that the show "got to me" - it was a good show. I will miss it!
To each his own, but I really enjoyed this show. Thanks for starting the thread!