Review

by Adam K

A guest writer delivers the goods

During its run, Homicide let a lot of reasonably well known directors like John McNaughton, Gary Fleder and Kathryn Bigelow take turns behind the camera. However, they almost never let any guest writers take turns for the show. This is hardly surprising because most TV producer with very few exceptions (Michael Crichton for ‘ER’ is the most obvious one) its very difficult for a famous screenwriter or a novelist to write for a show with its own style. So its strange that the show as a ratings stunt would hire a famous writer. It’s even stranger when the famous writer is Jane Smiley. But it soon becomes very clear that Smiley knew the characters and plots of ‘Homicide’ very well. Indeed her script is so reminiscent of the old school show that its pretty hard to believe that Tom Fontana or James Yoshimura didn’t have anything to do with.