Night of the Dead Living
Encyclopedia
"Night of the Dead Living" is the ninth episode and first season finale of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street
. It originally aired on NBC
in the United States on March 31, 1993. In the episode, the homicide squad works the night shift on a summer evening, but no calls come in, leaving the detectives to brood over their personal matters. The teleplay was written by Frank Pugliese
based on a story he wrote along with executive director Tom Fontana
. It was directed by Michael Lehmann
.
"Night of the Dead Living" was originally intended to be the third episode of the season, but NBC programmers moved it to the end of the season because they felt its slow pace and lack of traditional action was inappropriate early in the series, when the show was trying to woo viewers. The broadcast schedule change led to some consistency and time-line errors, which Homicide producers addressed by adding the words "One hot night, last September..." to the beginning of the episode. Actress N'Bushe Wright
makes a guest appearance as a cleaning woman who loses her baby in the police station.
Since ratings for Homicide had gradually declined throughout the season, NBC announced a decision about whether the series would be renewed would depend on the Nielsen ratings
of the final four episodes, including "Night of the Dead Living". Nevertheless, it was seen by 6.7 million household viewers, marking one of the lowest viewerships of the season. It received generally positive reviews upon its original broadcast, although some mainstream television audiences were turned off by its minimalist approach. It marked the last original episode of Homicide for nine months until the second season
premiere, "Bop Gun
". The episode's teleplay won a Writers Guild of America Award
for Outstanding Achievement in Television Writing for Episodic Drama.
(Yaphet Kotto
) calls maintenance to complain about the non-working air conditioner and learns it has been shut off for the night. Felton
(Daniel Baldwin
) and Lewis
(Clark Johnson
) try to find out who secretly lights the candle every night; they blow it out a number of times, but it always ends up lit again without anyone noticing. Munch
(Richard Belzer
) loudly complains about his ex-girlfriend breaking up with him. While the other detectives sweat and complain about the heat, a calm and comfortable Pembleton
(Andre Braugher
) wears a tie and drinks hot tea without sweating. Bayliss
(Kyle Secor
), who acts uncooperative with his partner Pembleton, says he has found the fingerprints of a man named James Hill who he believes is the murderer in the Adena Watson case. Officer Thormann (Lee Tergesen
) brings in Hill, who turns out to be a 12-year-old boy (Kenny Black), much to the amusement of the other detectives.
The detectives are shocked at the lack of homicide-related calls they are receiving throughout the night. Bolander
(Ned Beatty
) tries several times throughout the night to call Medical Examiner Blythe (Wendy Hughes
) and ask her out on a date, but he cannot build up the courage. With encouragement from Howard
(Melissa Leo
), he finally asks Blythe out and is shocked when she accepts. Crosetti
(Jon Polito
) gets agitated when his daughter calls and wants her boyfriend to sleep over. Gee comforts Crosetti and lets him go home to take care of her. Gee finds a baby boy in a small cage like animal carrier on the bottom floor of the police department. The baby is very popular with the detectives, who take care of him while they wait for social services to arrive. After the social services worker takes the baby, the cleaning lady Loretta Kenyatta (N'Bushe Wright
) hysterically screams somebody kidnapped her baby. The detectives get the baby back for her while Bayliss, infatuated with Loretta, listens to her talk about her life.
Howard gets a call from her sister, who has recently found a tumor on her breast. The sister has just learned her husband has been having an affair. Although Howard is initially hesitant to confide in Felton, he eventually surprises her by offering genuine words of comfort. A drunken man dressed as Santa Claus
(Cleve Wall) is arrested for threatening his wife and a crowd of people with a water pistol. Later, the detectives get a call that Santa Claus has escaped from custody in the department, and he is found after falling through the ceiling and landing on Munch's desk. Meanwhile, Pembleton and Bayliss discuss the Watson murder scene. Bayliss insists he has already gone over the information repeatedly, but Pembleton tells him he needs to think outside the box and approach it with from the mind-frame of a criminal. Later, Bayliss reexamines the information and realizes the killer brought Watson down a fire escape, offering a new lead in the case. As the new day dawns, Gee has the detectives assemble on the roof so he can spray them with a garden hose to cool them off.
The episode ends with Munch revealing to Thormann that he lights the candle each night "for all the ones who have been killed," while Thormann admits that he re-lit it in Munch's absence because he knew it meant something to him.
. The teleplay was written by Frank Pugliese
based on a story he wrote along with executive director Tom Fontana
. It was originally intended to be the third episode of the first season, but NBC
programmers felt it was too slow-paced to run so early in the season. The episode takes place entirely within the squad room and lacks the traditional action of a typical police series, which NBC executives felt was not appropriate for an early stage when the series was still trying to woo viewers. The programmers also preferred to end the series on the upbeat note of the final scenes in "Night of the Dead Living", which includes the detectives happily smiling and laughing on the roof of the police department building as Gee sprays them with a hose to relieve the summer heat. In contrast, the originally-planned season finale, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
", which Homicide producers felt had a sense of resolving season storylines, was a somber episode which ended with a sad image of Bolander quietly singing to himself at a bar over a beer.
Running the episode out of sequence produced several notable continuity errors. For example, Bayliss and Pembleton are still working on the Adena Watson murder, which they had stopped actively investigating in the earlier episode "Three Men and Adena
". Additionally, Officer Thormann is seen onscreen working and healthy, although he was blinded in the earlier episode "Son of a Gun
" as a result of a gunshot wound to the head that forced him to leave the police department. These consistency errors were addressed by Homicide producers by adding the words "One hot night, last September..." to the beginning of the episode, thus establishing the events of the episode took place within the correct timeline of the series, even though the episodes are shown out of order. The Watson case depicted in the episode was based on the real-life 1988 Baltimore slaying of Latonya Kim Wallace, which is chronicled in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
, the 1991 David Simon
non-fiction book about a Baltimore Police Department
, which was adapted into the Homicide series.
During "Night of the Dead Living", Crosetti displays an overriding concern for the safety and welfare of his daughter Beatrice. After Crosetti was revealed to have killed himself in the third season
episode "Crosetti", many viewers claimed suicide was unrealistic for his character based on his feelings about his daughter displayed in this episode. Beatrice is referred to only by name in "Night of the Dead Living", and would not appear onscreen until she grieved over her father's death in "Crosetti". While discussing the mysterious candle with Lewis in the episode, Felton said he generally solves cases with physical evidence, witnesses and confessions, not by investigating motives. This insight into detective work is consistent with the conclusions Simon drew in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, and reviewers have praised Homicide for its realism in portraying detective work from this perspective, which is in stark contrast to other typical police dramas.
N'Bushe Wright
, best known to this point for playing the student activist Claudia Bishop in the NBC
drama series I'll Fly Away
, made a guest appearance in "Night of the Dead Living" as the cleaning woman Loretta Kenyatta. Wright was cast in the role based on her performance in Zebrahead
(1992), a drama film about an interracial romance. A number of songs play on radios in the squad room throughout "Night of the Dead Living". Among the music featured in the episode were the songs "Lay Down My Life" by Carole King
, "Texas Slide" by Jean-Jacques Milteau
, "N.Y.C (Can You Believe This City?)" by Charles and Eddie
, "Little Boy Blues" and "Break Up" by Gary Fitzgerald, and "Tropic Call" by Mitchell Coodley and Andrew Snitzer.
, earning the episode a 7.2 rating. It was one of the lowest ratings of the first season of Homicide: Life on the Street, continuing the downward trend of the season. By comparison, the previous episode, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
", was seen by 7.08 million households, while the season premiere, "Gone for Goode
", was watched by more than 18 million households due to a lead-in from Super Bowl XXVII
. Homicide ranked low in the Nielsen ratings compared to other shows the week of "Night of the Dead Living", while its time-slot competitor, the ABC
comedy Home Improvement, ranked second for the week with 20.39 million household viewers.
At the time that the season finale aired, Homicide producers still did not know whether their show would be renewed for a second season
. After the season finale, Homicide: Life on the Street went on a hiatus while the network decided whether the series would be renewed. That hiatus ultimately lasted nine months until the premiere of the second season
premiere, "Bop Gun
".
writer Matt Roush gave the episode four out of four stars, comparing it to David Mamet
's Glengarry Glen Ross
and calling it "minimalist drama (with) maximum impact". Roush wrote, "Imagine a crime show during which no crime occurs. Next to nothing happens. Yet every second counts." Lon Grahnke of the Chicago Sun-Times
also gave it four out of four stars. He wrote, "If Life on the Street winds up dead after tonight's episode – the victim of low Nielsen ratings – at least the nine superb actors in the squad will know they made a grand exit."
The Salt Lake Tribune
writer Harold Schindler praised the episode, particularly the "excellent writing, great acting [and] super atmosphere". Rocky Mountain News
writer Dusty Saunders called the series "superb" and described Night of the Dead Living as "fascinating character studies of police officers in the squad room". In a 2007 article, Star Tribune
writer Neal Justin included "Night of the Dead Living" in a list of 10 excellent network television episodes dating back 40 years. Justin said the episode the episode proved it was not acting that made for good television, but rather strong writing and acting. Not all reviews were positive. John J. O'Connor of The New York Times
praised the series in general, but said the various overlapping subplots in "Night of the Dead Living" – like the Santa Claus suspect, the pre-teen murder suspect and the cleaning woman's missing baby – felt like gratuitous "oddball routines". O'Connor added, "Too much cleverness can be grating."
Frank Pugliese and Tom Fontana won a Writers Guild of America
award for Outstanding Achievement in Television Writing for Episodic Drama for the "Night of the Dead Living" teleplay. The script competed in that category against another Homicide episode, the first season premiere "Gone for Goode
". The "Night of the Dead Living" teleplay also defeated scripts for the shows I'll Fly Away
, Life Goes On
, Picket Fences
, TriBeCa
and Reasonable Doubts
.
on May 27, 2003.
Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...
. It originally aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in the United States on March 31, 1993. In the episode, the homicide squad works the night shift on a summer evening, but no calls come in, leaving the detectives to brood over their personal matters. The teleplay was written by Frank Pugliese
Frank Pugliese
Frankie Pugliese a TV writer and artistic director. He won a WGA Award for Homicide: Life on the Street episode Night of the Living Dead. He is also a playwright.- Sources :...
based on a story he wrote along with executive director Tom Fontana
Tom Fontana
Tom Fontana is an American writer and producer.-TV career:Fontana has been a writer/producer for such series as Oz , The Jury, The Beat, The Bedford Diaries, Homicide: Life on the Street, St...
. It was directed by Michael Lehmann
Michael Lehmann
Michael Stephen Lehmann is an American film and television director.Lehmann attended Columbia University. His first job in the film industry was answering phones at Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film company. Later he supervised cameras on films that included 1983's The Outsiders...
.
"Night of the Dead Living" was originally intended to be the third episode of the season, but NBC programmers moved it to the end of the season because they felt its slow pace and lack of traditional action was inappropriate early in the series, when the show was trying to woo viewers. The broadcast schedule change led to some consistency and time-line errors, which Homicide producers addressed by adding the words "One hot night, last September..." to the beginning of the episode. Actress N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright is an American film and television actress, known mainly for her part in Blade. A native of New York City, she is the daughter of jazzman Stanely Wright aka Suleiman-Marim Wright...
makes a guest appearance as a cleaning woman who loses her baby in the police station.
Since ratings for Homicide had gradually declined throughout the season, NBC announced a decision about whether the series would be renewed would depend on the Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of the final four episodes, including "Night of the Dead Living". Nevertheless, it was seen by 6.7 million household viewers, marking one of the lowest viewerships of the season. It received generally positive reviews upon its original broadcast, although some mainstream television audiences were turned off by its minimalist approach. It marked the last original episode of Homicide for nine months until the second season
Homicide: Life on the Street (season 2)
The second season of Homicide: Life on the Street, an American police procedural drama television series, originally aired in the United States between January 6 and January 27, 1994. Due to low Nielsen ratings during the first season, NBC executives decided to order only a four-episode season,...
premiere, "Bop Gun
Bop Gun (Homicide: Life on the Street)
"Bop Gun" is the second season premiere of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street, and the tenth overall episode of the series. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 6, 1994...
". The episode's teleplay won a Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
for Outstanding Achievement in Television Writing for Episodic Drama.
Plot summary
The episode begins with an unknown person lighting a candle in the homicide squadroom. One by one, the detectives arrive for the night shift on an unusually hot September evening. A furious GeeAl Giardello
Alphonse Michael Giardello, Sr. is a fictional character from the television drama Homicide: Life on the Street. The character was played by Yaphet Kotto...
(Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Frederick Kotto is an African-American actor, known for numerous film roles , and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street .-Early life:Kotto was born in New York City, the son of Gladys Marie, a...
) calls maintenance to complain about the non-working air conditioner and learns it has been shut off for the night. Felton
Beau Felton
Det. Beauregard D. 'Beau' Felton is a fictional character on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by Daniel Baldwin for seasons 1-3. He was loosely based on Det...
(Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Leroy Baldwin is an American actor, producer and director. He is the second oldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all of whom are actors. Daniel Baldwin is known for his role as Detective Beau Felton in the popular NBC TV series Homicide: Life on the Street...
) and Lewis
Meldrick Lewis
Meldrick Lewis is a fictional character on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street played by Clark Johnson. The character was in the series for its full run and had the very first and last lines of the series...
(Clark Johnson
Clark Johnson
Clark Johnson , sometimes credited as Clark 'Slappy' Jackson, Clarque Johnson, and J. Clark Johnson, is an American actor and director who has worked in both television and film.-Early years:...
) try to find out who secretly lights the candle every night; they blow it out a number of times, but it always ends up lit again without anyone noticing. Munch
John Munch
Sergeant John Munch is a fictional character played by actor Richard Belzer. Munch first appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street. Upon that series' cancellation, the character was transplanted to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the first spin-off of the Law & Order franchise...
(Richard Belzer
Richard Belzer
Richard Jay Belzer is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as John Munch, which he has portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as in guest...
) loudly complains about his ex-girlfriend breaking up with him. While the other detectives sweat and complain about the heat, a calm and comfortable Pembleton
Frank Pembleton
Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton is a fictional homicide detective on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by Emmy Award winning actor Andre Braugher. He is a primary character of the show through the first six seasons...
(Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Thomas Searles in the film Glory, as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film Homicide: Life on the Street, and as Owen Thoreau Jr...
) wears a tie and drinks hot tea without sweating. Bayliss
Tim Bayliss
Timothy Bayliss is a fictional detective on Homicide: Life on the Street. He was a primary character, and was played by Kyle Secor. He was loosely based on the real-life Det...
(Kyle Secor
Kyle Secor
Kyle Ivan Secor is an American television and movie actor, best known for his role as Detective Tim Bayliss on the crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street.-Early years:...
), who acts uncooperative with his partner Pembleton, says he has found the fingerprints of a man named James Hill who he believes is the murderer in the Adena Watson case. Officer Thormann (Lee Tergesen
Lee Tergesen
Lee Allen Tergesen is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Tobias Beecher in HBO’s prison drama Oz and as Evan Wright in Generation Kill.-Early life:...
) brings in Hill, who turns out to be a 12-year-old boy (Kenny Black), much to the amusement of the other detectives.
The detectives are shocked at the lack of homicide-related calls they are receiving throughout the night. Bolander
Stanley Bolander
Stanley Bolander is a fictional character in the American crime drama / police procedural Homicide: Life on the Street. He is portrayed by Ned Beatty and appears in the first three seasons and Homicide: The Movie.-Character overview:...
(Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
) tries several times throughout the night to call Medical Examiner Blythe (Wendy Hughes
Wendy Hughes
-Career:Hughes began her career on television in the early 1970s with appearances in Homicide, Number 96, Matlock Police and in 1976, ABC Mini-Series, Power Without Glory...
) and ask her out on a date, but he cannot build up the courage. With encouragement from Howard
Kay Howard
Kay Howard is a fictional homicide detective from Homicide: Life on the Street. She was played by actress Melissa Leo. In the first two seasons of the show her character was the only female detective or member of the main cast. This was in keeping with the book and the actual Homicide unit in...
(Melissa Leo
Melissa Leo
Melissa Chessington Leo , is an American actress. After appearing on several television shows and films in the late '80s, her breakthrough role came in 1993 as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street for the show's first five seasons from 1993 – 1997...
), he finally asks Blythe out and is shocked when she accepts. Crosetti
Steve Crosetti
Det. Steve Crosetti is a fictional character on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by actor Jon Polito for the show's first two seasons. He is believed to be based on Baltimore Police Department Det...
(Jon Polito
Jon Polito
Jon Polito is an American actor and voice artist, who is known for working with the Coen Brothers, most notably in the major supporting role of Italian gangster Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing. He also appeared in the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street and on the first season of...
) gets agitated when his daughter calls and wants her boyfriend to sleep over. Gee comforts Crosetti and lets him go home to take care of her. Gee finds a baby boy in a small cage like animal carrier on the bottom floor of the police department. The baby is very popular with the detectives, who take care of him while they wait for social services to arrive. After the social services worker takes the baby, the cleaning lady Loretta Kenyatta (N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright is an American film and television actress, known mainly for her part in Blade. A native of New York City, she is the daughter of jazzman Stanely Wright aka Suleiman-Marim Wright...
) hysterically screams somebody kidnapped her baby. The detectives get the baby back for her while Bayliss, infatuated with Loretta, listens to her talk about her life.
Howard gets a call from her sister, who has recently found a tumor on her breast. The sister has just learned her husband has been having an affair. Although Howard is initially hesitant to confide in Felton, he eventually surprises her by offering genuine words of comfort. A drunken man dressed as Santa Claus
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
(Cleve Wall) is arrested for threatening his wife and a crowd of people with a water pistol. Later, the detectives get a call that Santa Claus has escaped from custody in the department, and he is found after falling through the ceiling and landing on Munch's desk. Meanwhile, Pembleton and Bayliss discuss the Watson murder scene. Bayliss insists he has already gone over the information repeatedly, but Pembleton tells him he needs to think outside the box and approach it with from the mind-frame of a criminal. Later, Bayliss reexamines the information and realizes the killer brought Watson down a fire escape, offering a new lead in the case. As the new day dawns, Gee has the detectives assemble on the roof so he can spray them with a garden hose to cool them off.
The episode ends with Munch revealing to Thormann that he lights the candle each night "for all the ones who have been killed," while Thormann admits that he re-lit it in Munch's absence because he knew it meant something to him.
Production
"Night of the Dead Living" was directed by Michael LehmannMichael Lehmann
Michael Stephen Lehmann is an American film and television director.Lehmann attended Columbia University. His first job in the film industry was answering phones at Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film company. Later he supervised cameras on films that included 1983's The Outsiders...
. The teleplay was written by Frank Pugliese
Frank Pugliese
Frankie Pugliese a TV writer and artistic director. He won a WGA Award for Homicide: Life on the Street episode Night of the Living Dead. He is also a playwright.- Sources :...
based on a story he wrote along with executive director Tom Fontana
Tom Fontana
Tom Fontana is an American writer and producer.-TV career:Fontana has been a writer/producer for such series as Oz , The Jury, The Beat, The Bedford Diaries, Homicide: Life on the Street, St...
. It was originally intended to be the third episode of the first season, but NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
programmers felt it was too slow-paced to run so early in the season. The episode takes place entirely within the squad room and lacks the traditional action of a typical police series, which NBC executives felt was not appropriate for an early stage when the series was still trying to woo viewers. The programmers also preferred to end the series on the upbeat note of the final scenes in "Night of the Dead Living", which includes the detectives happily smiling and laughing on the roof of the police department building as Gee sprays them with a hose to relieve the summer heat. In contrast, the originally-planned season finale, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Homicide: Life on the Street)
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the eighth episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 24, 1993...
", which Homicide producers felt had a sense of resolving season storylines, was a somber episode which ended with a sad image of Bolander quietly singing to himself at a bar over a beer.
Running the episode out of sequence produced several notable continuity errors. For example, Bayliss and Pembleton are still working on the Adena Watson murder, which they had stopped actively investigating in the earlier episode "Three Men and Adena
Three Men and Adena
"Three Men and Adena" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 3, 1993. The episode was written by executive producer Tom Fontana and directed by Martin Campbell...
". Additionally, Officer Thormann is seen onscreen working and healthy, although he was blinded in the earlier episode "Son of a Gun
Son of a Gun (Homicide: Life on the Street)
"Son of a Gun" is the third episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on February 10, 1993. The teleplay was written by James Yoshimura based on a story by executive director Tom Fontana,...
" as a result of a gunshot wound to the head that forced him to leave the police department. These consistency errors were addressed by Homicide producers by adding the words "One hot night, last September..." to the beginning of the episode, thus establishing the events of the episode took place within the correct timeline of the series, even though the episodes are shown out of order. The Watson case depicted in the episode was based on the real-life 1988 Baltimore slaying of Latonya Kim Wallace, which is chronicled in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department homicide squad...
, the 1991 David Simon
David Simon
David Simon is an American author, journalist, and a writer/producer of television series. He worked for the Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years. He wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns...
non-fiction book about a Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore Police Department
The Baltimore Police Department provides police services to the city of Baltimore, Maryland and was officially established by the Maryland Legislature on March 16, 1853...
, which was adapted into the Homicide series.
During "Night of the Dead Living", Crosetti displays an overriding concern for the safety and welfare of his daughter Beatrice. After Crosetti was revealed to have killed himself in the third season
Homicide: Life on the Street (season 3)
The third season of Homicide: Life on the Street aired in the United States on the NBC television network from 1994-10-14 to 1995-05-05 and contained 20 episodes. It was the first full season of episodes.The third season marked the debut of character Lt...
episode "Crosetti", many viewers claimed suicide was unrealistic for his character based on his feelings about his daughter displayed in this episode. Beatrice is referred to only by name in "Night of the Dead Living", and would not appear onscreen until she grieved over her father's death in "Crosetti". While discussing the mysterious candle with Lewis in the episode, Felton said he generally solves cases with physical evidence, witnesses and confessions, not by investigating motives. This insight into detective work is consistent with the conclusions Simon drew in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, and reviewers have praised Homicide for its realism in portraying detective work from this perspective, which is in stark contrast to other typical police dramas.
N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright is an American film and television actress, known mainly for her part in Blade. A native of New York City, she is the daughter of jazzman Stanely Wright aka Suleiman-Marim Wright...
, best known to this point for playing the student activist Claudia Bishop in the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
drama series I'll Fly Away
I'll Fly Away (TV series)
I'll Fly Away is a television series set during the late 1950s and early 1960s, in an unspecified Southern U.S. state. It aired on NBC from 1991 to 1993 and starred Regina Taylor as Lilly Harper, a black housekeeper for district attorney Forrest Bedford and his family...
, made a guest appearance in "Night of the Dead Living" as the cleaning woman Loretta Kenyatta. Wright was cast in the role based on her performance in Zebrahead
Zebrahead (film)
Zebrahead is a 1992 drama film, directed by Anthony Drazan and starring Michael Rapaport and N'Bushe Wright. Set in Detroit, Michigan, the film is about an interracial romance between a white man and a black woman and the resulting tensions among the characters...
(1992), a drama film about an interracial romance. A number of songs play on radios in the squad room throughout "Night of the Dead Living". Among the music featured in the episode were the songs "Lay Down My Life" by Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
, "Texas Slide" by Jean-Jacques Milteau
Jean-Jacques Milteau
Jean-Jacques Milteau is a French blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter.- Career :Milteau became interested in the harmonica when he first heard folk and rock music in the 1960s...
, "N.Y.C (Can You Believe This City?)" by Charles and Eddie
Charles and Eddie
Charles & Eddie were an American soul music duo, that had four Top 40 hits in the UK Singles Chart in the 1990s. Their biggest was the worldwide hit single, "Would I Lie to You", taken from their 1992 debut album, Duophonic...
, "Little Boy Blues" and "Break Up" by Gary Fitzgerald, and "Tropic Call" by Mitchell Coodley and Andrew Snitzer.
Ratings
Ratings for Homicide: Life on the Street gradually declined since the series first premiered. In response, NBC announced to fans that a decision about whether Homicide would be renewed or canceled would depend on how the last four episodes of the season fared in the ratings, including "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". In its original American broadcast on March 31, 1993, the episode was watched by 6.7 million households, according to Nielsen Media ResearchNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, earning the episode a 7.2 rating. It was one of the lowest ratings of the first season of Homicide: Life on the Street, continuing the downward trend of the season. By comparison, the previous episode, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Homicide: Life on the Street)
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the eighth episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 24, 1993...
", was seen by 7.08 million households, while the season premiere, "Gone for Goode
Gone for Goode
"Gone for Goode" is the first episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 31, 1993, immediately following Super Bowl XXVII. The episode was written by series creator Paul...
", was watched by more than 18 million households due to a lead-in from Super Bowl XXVII
Super Bowl XXVII
Super Bowl XXVII was a football game played on January 31, 1993 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California to decide the National Football League champion following the 1992 regular season. The National Football Conference champion Dallas Cowboys defeated the American Football Conference champion...
. Homicide ranked low in the Nielsen ratings compared to other shows the week of "Night of the Dead Living", while its time-slot competitor, the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
comedy Home Improvement, ranked second for the week with 20.39 million household viewers.
At the time that the season finale aired, Homicide producers still did not know whether their show would be renewed for a second season
Homicide: Life on the Street (season 2)
The second season of Homicide: Life on the Street, an American police procedural drama television series, originally aired in the United States between January 6 and January 27, 1994. Due to low Nielsen ratings during the first season, NBC executives decided to order only a four-episode season,...
. After the season finale, Homicide: Life on the Street went on a hiatus while the network decided whether the series would be renewed. That hiatus ultimately lasted nine months until the premiere of the second season
Homicide: Life on the Street (season 2)
The second season of Homicide: Life on the Street, an American police procedural drama television series, originally aired in the United States between January 6 and January 27, 1994. Due to low Nielsen ratings during the first season, NBC executives decided to order only a four-episode season,...
premiere, "Bop Gun
Bop Gun (Homicide: Life on the Street)
"Bop Gun" is the second season premiere of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street, and the tenth overall episode of the series. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 6, 1994...
".
Reception
The episode received generally positive reviews from commentators, although David P. Kalat, author of Homicide: Life on the Street: The Unofficial Companion, said mainstream television audiences were "somewhat turned off by the minimalist approach". USA TodayUSA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
writer Matt Roush gave the episode four out of four stars, comparing it to David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
's Glengarry Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1984 play written by David Mamet. The play shows parts of two days in the lives of four desperate Chicago real estate agents who are prepared to engage in any number of unethical, illegal acts—from lies and flattery to bribery, threats, intimidation and burglary—to sell...
and calling it "minimalist drama (with) maximum impact". Roush wrote, "Imagine a crime show during which no crime occurs. Next to nothing happens. Yet every second counts." Lon Grahnke of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
also gave it four out of four stars. He wrote, "If Life on the Street winds up dead after tonight's episode – the victim of low Nielsen ratings – at least the nine superb actors in the squad will know they made a grand exit."
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the U.S. city of Salt Lake City. It is distributed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the Deseret News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based MediaNews Group....
writer Harold Schindler praised the episode, particularly the "excellent writing, great acting [and] super atmosphere". Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
writer Dusty Saunders called the series "superb" and described Night of the Dead Living as "fascinating character studies of police officers in the squad room". In a 2007 article, Star Tribune
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...
writer Neal Justin included "Night of the Dead Living" in a list of 10 excellent network television episodes dating back 40 years. Justin said the episode the episode proved it was not acting that made for good television, but rather strong writing and acting. Not all reviews were positive. John J. O'Connor of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
praised the series in general, but said the various overlapping subplots in "Night of the Dead Living" – like the Santa Claus suspect, the pre-teen murder suspect and the cleaning woman's missing baby – felt like gratuitous "oddball routines". O'Connor added, "Too much cleverness can be grating."
Frank Pugliese and Tom Fontana won a Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
award for Outstanding Achievement in Television Writing for Episodic Drama for the "Night of the Dead Living" teleplay. The script competed in that category against another Homicide episode, the first season premiere "Gone for Goode
Gone for Goode
"Gone for Goode" is the first episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 31, 1993, immediately following Super Bowl XXVII. The episode was written by series creator Paul...
". The "Night of the Dead Living" teleplay also defeated scripts for the shows I'll Fly Away
I'll Fly Away (TV series)
I'll Fly Away is a television series set during the late 1950s and early 1960s, in an unspecified Southern U.S. state. It aired on NBC from 1991 to 1993 and starred Regina Taylor as Lilly Harper, a black housekeeper for district attorney Forrest Bedford and his family...
, Life Goes On
Life Goes On (TV series)
Life Goes On is a television series that aired on ABC from September 12, 1989 to May 23, 1993. The show centers on the Thacher family living in suburban Chicago: Drew, his wife Elizabeth, and their children Paige, Rebecca, and Charles, who is known as Corky...
, Picket Fences
Picket Fences
Picket Fences is a 60-minute American television drama about the residents of the fictional town of Rome, Wisconsin, created and produced by David E. Kelley. The show initially ran from September 18, 1992, to June 26, 1996, on the CBS television network in the United States...
, TriBeCa
TriBeCa (TV series)
TriBeCa was a television drama anthology series created by David J. Burke and co-produced with Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal for TriBeCa Productions in 1993 that aired on the Fox Network...
and Reasonable Doubts
Reasonable Doubts
Reasonable Doubts is a police drama broadcast in the United States by NBC that ran from 1991 to 1993.-Synopsis:Reasonable Doubts is primarily about the working relationship between Assistant District Attorney Tess Kaufman , a prosecutor very sensitive to the rights of the accused, and...
.
DVD release
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and the rest of the first and second season episodes were included in the four-DVD box-set "Homicide: Life on the Street: The Complete Seasons 1 & 2", which was released by A&E Home VideoA&E Television Networks
A&E Television Networks is a U.S. media company that owns a group of television channels available via cable & satellite in the US and abroad...
on May 27, 2003.
External links
- "Night of the Dead Living" at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...