I've been watching the complete first season of Murder One on DVD lately. It's been a group thing, actually. Once or twice a week, I take it over to a friend's house, and a small group of us watch episodes together. Some are seeing it for the first time. Others, like me, saw it 10 years ago when it originally aired, but haven't caught it since.
The show is really excellent. It's a law drama from Steven Bochco, creator of shows like NYPD Blue, Doogie Howser, L.A. Law, and Hill Street Blues. (And yes, Cop Rock. Cringe.) This show's gimmick: a single crime followed over the course of an entire season, from arrest, to hearings, to jury selection, to trial, and everything after. But it was more than the gimmick, it was a truly excellent series.
Frankly, it was a series about 6 or 7 years before its time. Because when you really get down to it, this was a sort of proto-24. For whatever reason, TV audiences in 1995 weren't generally willing to hang with a show this serialized over the course of a year. (Or networks weren't willing to believe an audience would do so.) And DVD wasn't around yet as the perfect way to deliver a serialized show like this. Sure, soap operas like Dallas, Falcon Crest, and Dynasty had ruled the airwaves in the 80s, but Murder One was not camp, it was real drama.
Amazingly, Murder One did get a second season. But out of fear that the "one crime" gimmick was alienating viewers, the show switched to "three crimes over the course of the year." It also changed out much of its cast, including the "unconventional TV lead" that was Daniel Benzali in favor of the "more conventional" Anthony LaPaglia. (So conventional, in fact, that he's now got a hit show in Without A Trace. BTW, I have nothing against him. I'm simply pointing out that Murder One was seriously altered from its original first season vision.)
I have to wonder if Murder One had come along now, in the era of 24, Lost, and Desperate Housewives, if it would have been more successful and managed to last longer than two seasons. Still, I'm very grateful to have at least one of those seasons now on DVD. And I've been enjoying the episodes just as much now as the first time around.
4 comments:
I will have to add it to my list of things to watch. Were you a fan of Homicide?
I've never seen an episode of Homicide. Heard a little about it here and there, but nothing that pushed me to want to check it out.
I caught a few episodes of this when they originally aired, but it was during college, so my dedication was uneven at best.
Well, Homicide gets a high recommendation from me. I didn't start catching it until the third season (about the same time Murder One would have been airing), but I found it one of the best written shows on television at the time.
It was one of those shows that was critically acclaimed, but low rated. Wanting to have a show to counter NYPD Blue, NBC kept it on the air despite its ratings. It constantly had stellar writing and a great ensemble cast and pioneered many techniques that are now taken for granted in television dramas. The show was based on a book by the guy who is now producing HBO's The Wire, if that piques your interest any.
It's my favorite police procedural and I would rank it up there with the first few seasons of West Wing.
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