Homicide Television Program

Another merger. The prosecutors and coppers cum laude of "Law & Order" intersect this week with NBC's other heroic crime series, "Homicide: Life on the Street." The dramatic device is a lethal gas attack on African Americans in a Manhattan subway station that brings Baltimore's finest to New York to investigate a possible link to a similar slaughter in their city. Turf battles, short tempers and some of prime-time's best television ensue.

After four years of critical acclaim and troubled ratings, next season could be the last for "Homicide: Life on the Street," executive producer Tom Fontana says. During a recent interview on the set of "Oz," the drama series he and partner Barry Levinson are producing for HBO (premiering Saturday), Fontana said that "Homicide" is going to have to improve its ratings or NBC will cancel the show. "I'm very concerned about it," Fontana said.

Tom Fontana, executive producer of "Homicide: Life on the Street," had a year-end message for fans of the show: Things are going to get better in 1999. In a recent letter sent to some critics, Fontana offered the first public acknowledgment by the producers that the first half of the season has not exactly been a triumph for the award-winning police drama. "OK, we know some people think the show has been a little 'off' so far this season," Fontana wrote.

When television met the Web recently on the mean cyber-streets of Baltimore, "Homicide: Life on the Street" fans witnessed a murder online and NBC demonstrated the power of cross-media synergy. In an unusual three-part series of episodes that began online, progressed on-air and concluded online, "Homicide" for the first time merged its TV story line and characters with those of its Web spinoff show, "Homicide: Second Shift."