History Series / HomicideLifeOnTheStreet

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[[caption-width-right:300:The season three cast, clockwise from far left: detectives [[TheWoobie Bayliss]], [[InsufferableGenius Pembleton]], [[SoulBrotha Lewis]], and [[TheAlcoholic Felton]]; [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Lt Russert]], Det [[CoolOldGuy Bolander]], Lt [[DaChief Giardello]], detectives [[FieryRedhead Howard]] and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Munch]] ]]

* WholePlotReference: "Heartbeat" is one long ShoutOut to the works of Creator/EdgarAllenPoe, particularly "The Telltale Heart".

* VillainousBreakdown: Luther Mahoney maintains his cool throughout his time on the series, knowing that he's protected himself very well and has nothing to fear from Lewis and Kellerman. But in his final appearance, when everything starts going wrong for him, he doesn't take it very well.

* MauveShirt: Officer Chris Thormann, recurring mostly in the first season, and one of the few officers to appear outside of the main cast, chatting up many of the main characters, and being friends with Crosetti who mentored him. He even had a story arc, mentioning his wife wanting kids, then getting shot and blinded, and forced to live with the consequences, while his wife was pregnant. When Lewis investigates Crosetti's death, Thormann is seen at home with his wife, holding the baby. In a later episode Lewis and Thormann have become friends following Crosetti's death, and they celebrate an annual 'In memoriam' for him at a jazz club.

--> '''Pembleton:''' You had ''no right'' to kill them, especially in God's name! Now I gotta believe, [[SuddenlyShouting EVEN IF YOU WALK OUT OF HERE SCOT-FREE]], '''[[SuddenlyShouting GOD IS GONNA MAKE YOU PAY!]]''' One way or another.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: A variant where the villain actually declares this about himself. Vaughn Perkins from "Bop Gun" is a sensitive teenager who lost his father at an early age and grew up with an abusive, drug-addicted mother, and eventually had to be raised by his aunt. He moved back in with his mother and fell in with a bad crowd, and he kicks off the events of the episode when he shoots a woman during a fit of rage during a mugging. When Howard, who has been sympathetic to him and believes him to be covering up for his comparatively more hardened accomplices, visits him in prison and confronts him about it, Vaughn bluntly tells her that what he did was unforgivable and that he deserves to pay.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Throughout the first few episodes of the series, the writers are still struggling to get certain characters' characterization down. Howard is superstitious and jeopardizes a case when she believes she saw a victim's ghost in a dream, something the rational and pragmatic Howard would never do throughout the rest of the series (though, in fairness, she was suffering from sleep exhaustion). Similarly, Lewis and particularly Crosetti are far more immature than they would be for the rest of the series.

* OneOfOurOwn: A season three arc had the unit work over-time to catch the man who shot Bolander, Howard and Felton. The Unit and Pembleton in particular specifically refuse to let Violent Crimes (who would normally handle a non-fatal assault case) handle the case.
** In season five, knowing that Daniel Baldwin was probably never going to come back, the writers killed off Felton for some easy drama. The result was the unit, again working overtime, to try and catch Felton's killer.

* VitriolicBestBuds: Munch and Bolander; Pembleton and Bayliss; Lewis and Crosetti

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse:
A variant where the villain actually declares this about himself. Vaughn Perkins from "Bop Gun" is a sensitive teenager who lost his father at an early age and grew up with an abusive, drug-addicted mother, and fell in with a bad crowd, eventually shooting a woman during a botched mugging. He's filled with regret over it, but he points out to a sympathetic Howard that he still killed a woman and deserves to be punished for it.

* SympatheticMurderer: Vaughn Perkins from "Bop Gun", one of the few perps to ever show regret for their crime. He's a sensitive teenager who shoots a woman during a botched mugging, and ultimately enters a guilty plea for a life sentence as penance. Howard finds him so sympathetic that she initially tries to prove he's taking the fall for his accomplices, only stopping when he confesses that he did it in front of her.

* SympatheticMurderer: Vaughn Perkins from "Bop Gun" is a sensitive teenager who shoots a woman during a botched mugging, and ultimately enters a guilty plea for a life sentence as penance. Howard finds him so sympathetic that she initially tries to prove he's taking the fall for his accomplices, only stopping when he confesses that he did it in front of her.

[[caption-width-right:300:The season three cast, clockwise from far left: detectives [[TheWoobie Bayliss]], [[InsufferableGenius Pembleton]], [[SoulBrotha Lewis]], and [[TheAlcoholic Felton]]; Lt Russert, Det [[CoolOldGuy Bolander]], Lt [[DaChief Giardello]], detectives [[FieryRedhead Howard]] and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Munch]] ]]

[[caption-width-right:300:The season three cast, clockwise from far left: detectives [[TheWoobie Bayliss]], Pembleton, [[SoulBrotha Lewis]], and [[TheAlcoholic Felton]]; Lt Russert, Det [[CoolOldGuy Bolander]], Lt [[DaChief Giardello]], detectives Howard and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Munch]] ]]

* ButNotTooBi: Bisexual Tim Bayliss is never shown with a boyfriend, despite having been stated to have had sex with at least one man. The closest we come is Tim being rejected by one black, closeted, uniformed officer, and going on a dinner date with a man who runs a mostly gay restaurant. It even takes the show a season to actually ''use'' the word bi(sexual); before that, Bayliss says he's 'not strictly heterosexual'. As counterpoint, Bayliss is shown to have had at least one girlfriend whom he had a full blown love scene with. He also had brief affairs/flirtations with at least three of his female co-workers (Cox, Ballard, Sheppard) and [[Series/LawAndOrder Claire Kincaid]]. Somewhat {{justified}}, though, in that Bayliss doesn't fully acknowledge his attraction to men until season 6, just one before the last- and by that point he doesn't strike up a serious romance with ''anyone'' for the remainder of the series.

* ButNotTooBi: Bisexual Tim Bayliss is never shown with a boyfriend, despite having been stated to have had sex with at least one man. The closest we come is Tim being rejected by one black, closeted, uniformed officer and going on a dinner date with a man who runs a mostly gay restaurant. As counterpoint, Bayliss is shown to have had at least one girlfriend whom he had a full blown love scene with. He also had brief affairs/flirtations with at least three of his female co-workers (Cox, Ballard, Sheppard) and [[Series/LawAndOrder Claire Kincaid]].

The show was created by Paul Attanasio and was produced by Baltimore Pictures, the production company of executive producer Barry Levinson, initially alongside Reeves Entertainment. After the first season, however, Reeves Entertainment's parent company, Creator/ThamesTelevision, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and NBC assumed co-production duties.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Bolander was unceremoniously written off after the third season. Unlike Felton and Crosetti, however, he did avoid a BusCrash.

* ButNotTooBi: Bi-sexual Tim Bayliss is never shown with a boyfriend, despite having been stated to have had sex with at least one man. The closest we come is Tim being rejected by one black, closeted, uniformed officer and going on a dinner date with a man who runs a mostly gay restaurant. As counterpoint, Bayliss is shown to have had at least one girlfriend whom he had a full blown love scene with. He also had brief affairs/flirtations with at least three of his female co-workers (Cox, Ballard, Sheppard) and [[Series/LawAndOrder Claire Kincaid]].

** This is particularly notable in the second season when Bayliss claims that [[SexEqualsLove sex is love]] and decries the act of sex for pleasure as 'dehumanising'. Pembleton makes a point of telling him that he's either pretending to be virtuous or is simply an idiot. Later in the series Bayliss drastically changes his stance as he begins to embrace his bi-sexuality.

* ButNotTooGay: Bi-sexual Tim Bayliss is never shown with a boyfriend, despite having been stated to have had sex with at least one man. The closest we come is Tim being rejected by one black, closeted, uniformed officer and going on a dinner date with a man who runs a mostly gay restaurant. As counterpoint, Bayliss is shown to have had at least one girlfriend whom he had a full blown love scene with. He also had brief affairs/flirtations with at least three of his female co-workers (Cox, Ballard, Sheppard) and [[Series/LawAndOrder Claire Kincaid]].

* DisappointedByTheMotive: Bayliss is disgusted to learn that [[spoiler:a homeless man had murdered a Buddhist monk [[DisproportionateRetributiom simply because he was offended that the monk had offered him a spoon.]]]]