In the early hours of Monday morning, Susan C. Ingram jumped out of bed like a kid on Christmas. But she wasn’t looking for her gift under a tree. Instead, she headed for the TV to find that her present wasn’t yet there.

“I was up in the middle of the night on Peacock like, ‘Where is it? Where is it? Why isn’t it up yet?’” said Ingram, a former camera assistant on NBC’s dearly beloved Baltimore-set series “Homicide: Life on the Street” and co-host of the podcast “Homicide: Life On The Set.” She was hunting for the long-awaited streaming premiere of the Emmy and Peabody-winning classic after years of it being largely unavailable outside of DVDs and an occasionally aired “Law and Order” two-episode crossover (without the “Homicide” episode).

“It’s nice not to have to get up and change the DVD,” Ingram told me this week of the series that ran from 1993 to 1999. I feel her joy: “Homicide,” which followed Baltimore homicide detectives as they pondered life, death and this crazy city, is my favorite show of all time. Like the podcaster, I giddily leapt into the show like I was reuniting with an old friend, and I can’t wait for new fans to discover it.

But before you jump in, there are some things to keep in mind.

It might not be the kind of cop show you’re used to.

As a behind-the-scenes person herself, Ingram was intrigued by what the show would look like on modern televisions. “It was shot in an era without widescreen television, and I was curious how much it would look like it was chopped off at the top and bottom to be a widescreen image,” she said. Fortunately, that transition isn’t visibly obvious.

The truth, however, is that “Homicide” is still more than 30 years old. “American viewers might be used to much more slickly produced shows, where everyone is beautiful and has makeup on,” Ingram said. “This show is not that. Hopefully they will stick with it.”

Honestly, the realism of the series was one of the things that endeared it to me as a Baltimore native watching the first season wistfully from Miami, where I lived at the time. The gorgeously unmade-up face of Detective Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) remains refreshing, as do the regular-people bodies of Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito). You actually believe they were too busy solving crime to be at the gym 24/7.

The police spend almost as much time talking as chasing. Maybe more.

“Not to sound like a broken record, but it is absolutely a stunningly written show,” Ingram said. She’s right. The premiere episode starts off with a spicy conversation between partners Crosetti and Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) that veers from race to who really killed Abraham Lincoln, and we get to know the other members of the squad in similarly intricate dialogue. It’s a reminder that humans can’t be around death this much without talking to the only other people who will understand.

“The racial and gender issues, and the class issues, and every other issue was brought up,” Ingram said. “They talked about the war on drugs. Melissa Leo has a rant about having to work with men, and what they’re capable of. But it never feels like you’re being preached to. The characters are passionate and angry about things they care about.”

The series’ star doesn’t immediately show his glorious bald head.

Even if you’ve never seen “Homicide,” you’ve probably heard of its lead: the prickly, brilliant Detective Frank Pembleton, played by the late Andre Braugher, who went on to be part of a very different and goofier cop show called “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” You don’t actually meet him on screen until around the 15-minute mark, but by then his name has been on the lips of his co-workers, sometimes disparagingly. He’s fussy. He’s a lone wolf who won’t work with a partner. He thinks he’s better than other people. By the time Pembleton appears, all bristling intelligence and impatience, you can’t wait to know if this guy is all he’s cracked up to be. And believe me — he’s that and more.

You won’t believe what the luxury hotel in Fells Point used to look like!

The most delightful thing about watching the premiere after all these years is the reminder of how Baltimore both changes and stays the same. There’s no better example of that than the “Homicide” set at the Recreation Pier in Fells Point. In 1993, the building’s interiors played the part of a dully lit office of blue walls, nondescript desks and ringing phones, but now they’re the atmospheric environs of the fancy Sagamore Pendry hotel. What a crafty, creative place this is!

The show talks a lot about race.

That opening conversation between Lewis and Crosetti as they investigate a murder is punctuated by Lewis, who is Black, calling his partner a pointedly anti-Italian slur that he seems to think is a joke. A few moments later, we meet rookie homicide detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) and see him extend his hand to Crosetti, who he assumes is his new boss, Lt. Al Giardello — except Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) is actually the Black man standing next to him.

Then there’s Pembleton’s frank assertion that Felton, a brusque white guy from Hampden with some racial views that should be retrograde but sadly aren’t, resents him because “every day I prove you are no better than me.”

These scenes are a constant reminder of how Baltimore’s diversity means that people of different backgrounds might interact more than in other cities, but those interactions are often fraught with distrust and prejudice even as we try to make the world a better place. That has not changed.

Meet Munch.

When actor and comedian Richard Belzer died in 2023, I wrote about how sardonic, conspiracy theory-believing Detective John Munch, famous for “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” originated on “Homicide.” I literally clapped like a drunken seal every time he showed up on my rewatch of the first episode, alluding to his several marriages and his general distrust in the system he was paid to uphold. Munch is a weird, passionate joy. You’re gonna love him.

The premiere’s ending sets up a mystery that lasts the entire series.

Without spoiling the entire seven seasons of “Homicide,” I want you to pay special attention the murder victim in the last scene of the first episode. You don’t know her name yet, but you’re going to be hearing it a lot. The investigation into her death will have a profound effect on previously eager rookie Detective Bayliss, as well as the entire squad. I’m not going to tell you why.

You’ll have to watch it yourself.