 " Gone for Goode " was scheduled to premiere on January 31 , 1993 , in the time slot immediately following Super Bowl XXVII . Having consistently placed third in the Nielsen ratings during prime time since September 1992 , NBC hoped a large football audience coupled with an extensive advertising campaign would allow Homicide : Life on the Street to give the network a large ratings boost . The network ran numerous television commercials advertising the premiere episode , some of which focused on the involvement of Barry Levinson with the hope of capitalizing on the feature film director 's household name . 
