PAUL ATTANASIO: I created Frank Pembleton out of the idea of a character who didn’t want a partner. And then Kyle’s character, Bayliss, is a more practical, traditional TV character, and he’s a rookie, so you can use him as a guide, to take you into the show.
Fontana: Our premiere was after the Super Bowl. NBC is very excited about this. I said to Barry, “After the Super Bowl, everyone gets drunk! This is not a show you can watch drunk.”
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ANDRE BRAUGHER: For the first year, we liked a sort of Jean-Luc Godard jump-cut sensibility.
Fontana: I said to Barry, “You know, I’d love to do an episode that basically just happens in the interrogation room.” He said, “Let’s try it. Let’s try everything.”
KYLE SECOR: I went in and met them. A few minutes later, they said, “What we’re going to do for episode six, is three people in an interrogation room. It’s going to be you, your partner, and another character.” And I went, “Oh well, I’ll go in gone.”
FONTANA: The Real Girl Murdered in Baltimore, the basis for the story of Adena Watson, whose murder was never solved. I decided we would never solve a murder on the show because we felt it would be disrespectful to the family and the memory of the young girl.
Ned Beatty and Richard Belzer played the famous stand-up comedians in a scene on “Homicide.”
SECOR: We had rehearsals before shooting, which was a relief. Andre and I spent so much time in that room that it felt like it was our room. We took control of that room.
BRAUGHER: We performed it like a play. nowhere to go. It was a small, curiously shaped room with a door and a window. So there are only three people going around.
Fontana: We asked viewers to watch this intense hour of interrogation and then not give them the resolution they were hoping for. This is also very satisfying for me, since I don’t want it to end up clean and tidy.
“By the time we were done, we had used everything in the book, including commas and question marks.”
producer tom fontana
Atanasio: I think what’s really great about that script is that it’s one thing to say you can’t give the audience what they want. But the next question is, what are you giving them? What Tom gave them was heartbreak. and indecision.
FONTANA: I know the rhythms of Andre and Secor. And I know it’s got to have twists and turns, and eventually, Tucker is going to start suing them. I know going in is the way it travels.
Atanasio: It’s not just bran cereal that’s good for you. Exciting. You can’t take your eyes off it. That’s three actors in a room.
BRAUGHER: It was one of the funniest episodes I’ve ever done. It was physically exhausting and emotionally exhausting, but very satisfying.
At the end of the episode, Bayliss took Adner’s photo from the interrogation room and placed it on his desk, where it remained for multiple seasons.
SECOR: When I met Tom Pellegrini, the detective I relied on, I got Baylis immediately because not being able to solve the case affected his life. It affected his marriage, it affected his relationships, it affected his work, it affected his view of work, everything.
FONTANA: If you’re going to track a character through the life of a series, you need to see what he or she has accumulated. There’s an episode where he puts pictures in a drawer. He’s kind of like, “I’ve got to get over this now.”
BRAUGHER: That’s one of the beautiful things about this episode. It won’t settle in favor of our hero. The moral setback throughout the series is that Adna Watson’s murder was never solved.
FONTANA: Over the course of my career, I’ve had countless shows that I’m proud of, but never in the top 10, first of all St. Elsewhere.
ATTANASIO: Don Ohlmeyer (NBC West Coast president at the time) loved the show, as long as they could make it for a reasonable amount.
BRAUGHER: When I think back to that original group, that first-year and second-year group, it was a great cast and boy, we were weird. Boy, are we misfits, and I love it.
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Levinson: For the past four years, I’ve been trying to find an answer to why we’re not streaming. No one, and I mean no one, can give me an answer. There is money to be made. You don’t know how to handle any entitlement issues that may arise?You said more than 120[thing] episodes. Somehow no one can figure out what to do with these entitlements? That doesn’t make sense!
SECOR: Who knows? Maybe we’ll start streaming it on Netflix!
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
This article originally appeared on New York Times.
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