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This post was originally published July 23.
It has been updated now thatHomicide: Life on the Streetis streaming on Peacock.
Im absolutely thrilled, Fontana says.
Im going to be very curious to see what people think.
Does the show hold up?
All I see are the imperfections, he admits.
Could we get a reboot?
Maybe if he can break the spell of the original.
The re-release news is huge.
We got various reasons.
One that was true was the music rights.
Now they buy it in perpetuity throughout the universe.
So NBC had to step up and renegotiate and we had a lot of great songs on the show.
Barry and I were like, No, were not doing that.
That didnt speed things up.
But the remastered versions look fabulous.
Were you and Levinson involved in the remaster?No, we werent involved directly.
We just saw the end product, but that was fine.
The people doing it were really great at it.
Im one of these people who cant watch one of my shows once Ive finished.
All I want to do is fix them:Lets get everybody back.
I can rewrite the scene that I wrote.
I know how to write it better.
Well get a more interesting actor for the guest star.
It actually intensifies it in a weird kind of way, but youll be the judge.
What about music rights?
Were there any song choices that, for one reason or another, couldnt get re-licensed?
Was there anything you hated to lose even in this re-release?No.
If there was, they havent told us let me put it that way.
You had to own the discs to watch it.
What mark did it leave on the TV that came after?There were two things.
One is the shooting styles Barry came up with, the handheld camera.
If we shot it in a traditional way, it mightve really been flat.
They would get complaints that people were getting dizzy watching the show, throwing up or whatever.
But thats what we kept doing for the whole series.
Andre and Kyle were so good because they were opposites.
Thats what inspired me to write Three Men and Adena, the sixth episode of the first season.
Belzer was a dear, dear friend.
I visited him a few months before he died in France.
I just loved him.
The insanity of Richard Belzer was a joy to be a part of.
But Belz, he was fantastic.
Are there episodes youd recommend newcomers pay close attention to?
The homicide detectives investigate, and the parents are like, Hes not dead.
It was also about helping these people understand what death will mean to them.
Streaming might be kinder toHomicides vibe.
We had premiered after the Super Bowl, which at the time seemed like a great thing.
The show was not popular, and they were going to cancel it.
And it was a very difficult conversation.
We got Robin Williams to do Bop Gun, in one of his really first dramatic roles.
That spirited them on to renew the show for season three.
And then in season three, we didnt bring back an actor, Jon Polito.
The episode that was about his suicide just happened to fall on sweeps week.
And NBC decided it was too grim to air during sweeps week.
If you were watching, youd go,Crosetti died?
I didnt know Crosetti died.The next week, Crosetti died.
NBC would do that sometimes.
Once you finish the show, you dont really have any control over it.
Its really up to the web link.
They paid for it.
We were always like, Well, that doesnt always happen.
NBC wished we solved it.
They never said, Were not going to let you shoot that episode.
One time we had a story about a young man who was found hanging in his bedroom.
I respected that, and we didnt do it.
Roz and I had that kind of relationship.
Five or six years ago, I got a call from an executive at NBC Universal, the studio.
Im calling to see if youd be interested in rebootingHomicide, she said.
I talked to Barry, and we were like, Yeah, okay, maybe.
A week or so later she called me and said, The connection wants to knowwhy now?
And I said, Well, you fucking calledme.
I didnt call you.
Thats where that ended, because I didnt have a why now that I guess pleased them.
If theres a spark that comes off the Peacock streaming, maybe well take another look at it.
My biggest fear is being haunted by the original, and because so many of the actors are gone.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the name of Don Ohlmeyer.
