NBC's 'Homicide' is a great supplement for fans of 'The Wire'

It wasn’t too difficult to get my father interested in HBO’s series “The Wire.” All I had to do was tell him it was created by the same guy who did “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

He’ll be plenty excited NBC has opted to bring the series to its streaming Peacock service.

If you’re younger than 30, the show’s title might not ring familiar. It debuted in 1993 on NBC, and I remember it being one of the first of the wide variety of cops-and-crime dramas that was serialized. A murder investigation that starts in the pilot episode winds its way through four more episodes before its conclusion.

The series was adapted from former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon’s 1991 book, “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.” Simon followed Baltimore homicide detectives for a year and crafted a compelling, if bleak, account of the job’s importance and the toll it took on those who worked it.

It was one of the first primetime dramas to use hand-held camera work, it was shot on gritty 16-millimeter film and particularly dramatic moments were emphasized with a unique triple-repetition camera shot.

In the same way that more modern mafia films such as “Gomorrah” drained away all of the “Godfather”-inspired glamour surrounding mob culture, “Homicide” showed a group of police who couldn’t always be white knights riding to everyone’s rescue by the end of the hour. Homicides go unsolved, and police departments are affected by budget cuts and the politics of their city leaders.

Simon would go on to expand all of that to great effect, first on the limited HBO series “The Corner” and a few years later with “The Wire,” delving into the details of urban decay across institutions including the police, schools, unions, drug gangs, politics and the media.

And for fans of “The Wire,” “Homicide” is a fantastic supplement.

The aforementioned murder in the pilot is the first official homicide case worked by Detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), and it takes a heavy toll on him. In sharp contrast, Bayliss is paired with Detective Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), a hotshot who’s come to Baltimore from New York City and has never had to work with a partner before. Their abrasive unwilling-mentor/overeager-mentee relationship plays a large role in the show’s early years.

“Homicide” ran for 122 episodes over seven seasons through 1999, plus a “movie” finale in 2000. In addition, NBC also crafted several cross-over episodes with other properties such as “Law & Order,” starting a story arc on one show and ending it on the other. In fact, one of the “Homicide” detectives, John Munch (Richard Belzer), eventually showed up in the “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” series, where Belzer then spent the next 15 years as one of the show’s main detectives.

And Braugher went on to play a hilarious parody of serious cops like Pembleton as a police chief on NBC sitcom “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

I can’t recommend “Homicide” enough. And, for “Wire” fans, the book is worth reading, as well — several stories from the book made their way into the show.

Stream the show via PeacockTV.com or the Peacock app.