Homicide S7 - my thoughts - Part 6
"The Same Coin"
Oddly, the structure of the ep was very similar to something they might have done in S1 -- that the show was about the characters, with the murders used as a backdrop. Actually, I was never a particular fan of that format. Like I may have said before, the show was called Homicide: Life on the Street for a reason. It wasn't called The Life & Philosophies of Homicide Detectives. But if done well I'm not going to complain too much. "The Same Coin," however, was not done well. It was a little too similar to "Shades of Grey" with its accidental vehicular homicide, which was just two episodes earlier. Gharty being shown as some kind of moral giant about an episode that apparently nobody ever finds out about later is not believable. And the whole flashback thing looked so cheesy that it belonged to a direct-to-video movie.
"Homicide.com"
It was a pretty dopey situation but what made it worse that they ran the case like they had forgotten that there's other evidence besides for hair and skin. In "Sniper" they traced the chalk to find the guy. In "Homicide.com" they never once thought to trace the paint, the candles, the mask, the alias the killer used, etc. The mask was particularly distinctive and surely couldn't have been sold in too many places. The whole thing was sloppy and unbelievable. I thought Gee was particularly badly written. In the old days he would have pontificated about how nice the weather was and that would have scared the detectives out of their wits. Here Gee had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. One thing I did like, though: Bayliss's trying to give Sheppard a little pep talk. I only wish someone had done that for Kellerman along the way.
Oddly, the structure of the ep was very similar to something they might have done in S1 -- that the show was about the characters, with the murders used as a backdrop. Actually, I was never a particular fan of that format. Like I may have said before, the show was called Homicide: Life on the Street for a reason. It wasn't called The Life & Philosophies of Homicide Detectives. But if done well I'm not going to complain too much. "The Same Coin," however, was not done well. It was a little too similar to "Shades of Grey" with its accidental vehicular homicide, which was just two episodes earlier. Gharty being shown as some kind of moral giant about an episode that apparently nobody ever finds out about later is not believable. And the whole flashback thing looked so cheesy that it belonged to a direct-to-video movie.
"Homicide.com"
It was a pretty dopey situation but what made it worse that they ran the case like they had forgotten that there's other evidence besides for hair and skin. In "Sniper" they traced the chalk to find the guy. In "Homicide.com" they never once thought to trace the paint, the candles, the mask, the alias the killer used, etc. The mask was particularly distinctive and surely couldn't have been sold in too many places. The whole thing was sloppy and unbelievable. I thought Gee was particularly badly written. In the old days he would have pontificated about how nice the weather was and that would have scared the detectives out of their wits. Here Gee had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. One thing I did like, though: Bayliss's trying to give Sheppard a little pep talk. I only wish someone had done that for Kellerman along the way.