Reviews & Ratings for
"City Homicide" More at IMDbPro »

21 out of 25 people found the following review useful:

Possibly the best Australian drama in years

Author: korinnem from Australia
20 November 2007

When I started watching this show I was very sceptical of what I was going to fine. I haven't watched virtually any Australian shows in recent years, as almost all that are touted as drama are soaps instead (e.g. All Saints, Blue Heelers).

By the end of the first episode I was in love with this show. Having grown up hearing stories about the police force from people who know, this show seems to represent the realism that is sorely lacking in most other cop shows.

The acting is terrific, the humour is spot on and the gore level is just right. The cases are interesting and the way they are presented are sometimes destined to break your heart. This show sticks to drama instead of swaying into melodrama.

This is a must watch.

18 out of 24 people found the following review useful:

First rate drama

Author: nickapopolis87 (nmrenwick@gmail.com) from Melbourne, Australia
10 September 2007

I am always quite skeptical about Australian made dramas (and comedies for that matter). In my opinion it has never really been our forte, the writing talent hasn't been there. Fly-on-the wall, variety and reality: sure we excel but not in scripted stuff. But the times are changing, well on some networks at least.

City Homicide is a beautifully executed piece of television. In every way. The writing is strong, snappy and fast paced and is peppered with subtle Aussie humour. The dialogue is excellent. The acting (lead by Noni Hazelhurst and Shane Bourne) is first-class. This can be a real rarity on Aussie TV. The cinematography, editing and music is superb. I have never been so impressed. The Seven Network has done us proud with this production. All Saints isn't bad either, though it is no CH.

Compare all this to the tripe the Nine Network dishes up (and subsequently sells overseas): Sea Patrol. SP is the WORST piece of television I have seen. They spent records amounts of money on it, and for what? Writing? Doesn't appear to be any. Good dialogue? Next. Good acting? Not when Lisa McCune is around. Cinematography? Editing? Music? Mmm the less said about the first two the better and as for the music, it sounds like Mrs Hahn's year 8 music class did it on a synth keyboard. But wait the show is filmed on a real Navy patrol boat. Well then it must be good.

I digress. CH is excellent in every way.

7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:

Brilliant show! Waiting for the next season!

Author: douglas_carrison from Australia
2 June 2008

Last September, Mount Gambier's WIN Television station had a bit of a shakeup: WIN had signed an affiliation agreement with Seven (which people are still whining about almost ten months later), and we'd been getting the new programming. I'd started enjoying most of the new programming.

Anyway, One night, I had come home from visiting my grandparents, and saw City Homicide (I think it was the third episode). It was a brilliant show! Shane Bourne is an excellent actor, and with another Australian acting great, Noni Hazelhurst, it was sure to be an excellent show.

It's a well written show, better than CSI or all those other ones.

Someone else compared this show to Sea Patrol: I agree fully with their remarks. Sea Patrol was a rubbish show (We'd had Channel Nine programming beforehand). The acting wasn't there, there was no plot, it was just "ugh!", to sum it up in a word. City Homicide, on the other hand, had me on the edge of my seat on every episode. The adds annoyed me badly, simply because they got in the way of a brilliant, well-written plot.

If you see this show, watch it. (Oh, and if anyone from Channel Seven is reading this, Release Season Two already! And make it much, much, longer! Please?)

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:

Definitely not like an American show... in a good way.

Author: Deathbunny from United States
23 June 2011

Frankly, I'm an American watching this show "second hand" via the internet, 72 minutes at a time. This means my frame of comparison is typical American cop dramas.

I really like this show.

Unlike most US cop dramas, City Homicide is an actual ensemble show without a true "top billed" personality and a more realistic focus on the case, investigation, and legwork instead of the type of action real cops would call a SWAT team in for. Also, the plots suffer little in the way of "creep" towards outrageous plots like half of the CSI: Miami plots.

Another credit for City Homicide is the fact the actors don't come across like clothes models reading scripts. While most of the cast are attractive, they're believably so.

As far as characterization goes, City Homicide paints the characters as human with flaws that have to be lived with or worked around and not-- like many American shows--show up once out of the blue and are resolved in a single two-episode arc.

This is also a refreshing change.

If you like police dramas, give it a try. If you're an American and you somehow can watch this show, definitely give it a try.

(And don't worry, you'll pick up on the accent pretty quickly...)

1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:

CITY HOMICIDE - Slipping?

Author: jlgrn from Australia
6 October 2010

I have been a dedicated viewer of "City Homicide" for quite some time now. Each week I religiously turn on to Channel Seven and prepare to enjoy an episode. In the time that I have watched the show, I have come to recognise a gradual progression towards improvement in all areas of production. Recently however, two of the main characters from "City Homicide", Shane Bourne, (Daniel Wolfe) and Daniel MacPherson (Simon Joyner), have made a quiet exit beneath the radar so to speak. In their absence, the remainder of the cast have been left to look after the ship. The tight, enthralling episodes that were to be looked forward to each week have been replaced with weak characterless insipid plots featuring the very worst performances from the cast. However, with such tedious scripts being allocated to the actors, who could blame them for being a little lack-lustre? The episode that went to air this evening AEST, Wednesday 6th October, 2010, almost sent me to sleep in the first 10 minutes. I ended up turning it off. The previous episode, a week earlier, had the same effect. I ended up not seeing the conclusion. Please don't get me wrong; I look forward to watching this show each week. But, I'm telling you it "ain't making it" at the moment. And if I'm loosing "my" interest, I wonder how many others are as well? One other thing; the new detective that has been brought into the show, (can't recall his name at the moment), is obnoxious! The character he plays, or tries to, educated at Oxford, is just so unbelievable. This character is ruining what was becoming a top-notch crime series. Suggestion, recast him in an occasional appearance role as a gay CSI tech. Yes, it would work!

So, what to do? · Scriptwriters get your act together. Start producing some of the exhilarating material we know you are capable of. Fire up your imagination etc. · Get the original cast back and start interacting and acting! · What's the best source for scripting crime stories?

5 out of 25 people found the following review useful:

Avoid

Author: Matt_bobco (Matt_bobco@hotmail.com) from Australia
11 November 2007

City Homicide is the worst programme being made in Australia today.

The plots are unoriginal, the scripts are awful and the acting is poor. Shane Bourne is at best a C-grade actor, yet he manages to eclipse the rest of the cast who seem to be just showing up to collect their paychecks. None of them come close to being believable, and I sincerely hope this programme continues for a long time just to keep the cast from polluting anything else. The pathetic attempts at humour miss the mark entirely, and the show takes itself so seriously that you cannot help but cringe.

City Homicide is even worse than Sea Patrol, a frankly astounding achievement.

Awful, Just Awful. Avoid at all costs.

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