Fontana and Levinson Team Up Again for New A&E Series

Last week, A&E announced a development deal with producers Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson to produce a new half-hour cop drama called The Box. According to Digital Spy, episodes of the series, if picked up, “will focus on a small ensemble of detectives and their interactions with a key suspect or witness.”

This is great news for fans of the 1990s series Homicide: Life on the Street, which was also produced by Fontana and Levinson. Anyone who’s seen that show knows that its greatest dramatic pinnacles occurred in the interrogation room, otherwise referred to as “the Box.” That show dealt with the legal, moral, and ethical ramifications that arose out of techniques detectives use in getting confessions from suspects.

1996-1997 Cast of Homicide: Life on the Street

Nobody on Homicide could get a more thrilling confession both in the box and on TV than Andre Braugher’s Det. Frank Pembleton, who bar none set the standard for TV cops in the years since the series debuted in 1993. To watch Braugher putting the squeeze on suspects in the interrogation room was a good half of what made this NBC drama so unbelievably great. Needless to say, I’m a fan, so I’ll be looking forward to Levinson and Fontana’s latest collaboration.