There has been a little bit of a hiatus but I'm back and here's the number ten show.

Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide is an critically acclaimed, award winning show set in the Baltimore, Maryland homicide division. It's based on the experiences of David Simon as written about in his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and is uncompromising in it's dark and gritty look at crime in America.

Homicide does show its age in the quality of film and setting; for example mobile phones are non-existant and the film grain is low definition. But in the story and character department the show is fresher than many of it's contemporary brethren and in fact fresher than a lot of modern crime drama. It's a show driven by characters and has some fantastic ones in the cast. The most famous of which would be John Munch who has appeared in no less than eleven shows including The Wire, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, Law and Order and the X-Files. But many of the others are fantastic, especially Meldrick, Bayliss and Pembleton.

Now this is where things get a little tricky, as I've only seen the first four seasons of the show so far. I'm stuck waiting for the rest to be released on DVD. So I don't know what happens later on and it's very difficult to read the various online articles without having other events spoilered. So I can't say much more except that the first four seasons have been enough to make me put this show in the number ten slot.

It's an underappreciated diamond in the rough.

IMDB: 9.1
tv.com: 9.1