Homicide Life On The Street | Sky buys streaming rights for acclaimed police drama in the UK

Homicide Life On The Streets
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The highly acclaimed 1990s American police drama Homicide: Life On The Street will finally be available to stream in the UK thanks to Sky.


While late and much missed Andre Braugher may have won legions of fans in recent years for his pitch-perfect comic performance as Sgt Raymond Holt in sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it is his towering performance as Detective Frank Pendleton in Homicide: Life On The Street that he made his name.

The show was created by Paul Attanasio, who went on to become Oscar nominated for writing the screenplays for Robert Redfordā€™s Quiz Show and Mike Newellā€™s Donnie Brasco. Attanasio based the show on the book Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by journalist David Simon, who himself went on to have huge success in television after creating The Wire.

According to Deadline, fans in the UK will now be able to watch the show, as Sky has purchased the streaming rights. There is no word on when it will be available, but weā€™ll keep you updated as we hear more.

Homicide follows the day to day work of the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department. It was groundbreaking for choosing to portray the gritty realism of the job instead of explosive action sequences. It is now acclaimed as one of the greatest television dramas of all time, with several individual episodes also topping similar lists. Examples include an episode set entirely in an interrogation room, an episode about a prison riot and, perhaps most notably, Subway, an episode Vince Gilligan has cited as an inspiration for the episode of The X Files he wrote which guest starred Bryan Cranston. This directly led to his casting in Breaking Bad.

The team of detectives included Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty), Kay Howard (Melissa Leo), Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson), John Munch (Richard Belzer), Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito), as well as the Commander, Lieutenant Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto).

Although the show has been released on DVD, it has long been a point of consternation amongst fans that it has not been available for streaming, the reason being the music rights were too expensive. That changed, in the US at least, last year, when it was finally made available on Peacock. Now, finally, the UK is getting a chance to see a TV classic.

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