Kyle Secor is worth watching when he makes an authority figure difficult to like and still worth caring about. His Tim Bayliss in Homicide: Life on the Street remains our reason to seek him out.
Fi1m perspective
Tim Bayliss can be irritating, and Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) does not hurry to make excuses for him. Kyle Secor helps us believe these detectives work together without necessarily wanting one another’s company. We warmed to Bayliss because Secor let him be difficult while still giving us reason to care. He is good at sharing a scene: the department feels populated by separate people, each capable of making the working day a little harder for the others.
Andre Braugher, playing Bayliss’s partner Frank Pembleton, is the chief attraction, and Secor’s place beside him suits an actor whose strength is sustained ensemble work. With Tom Fontana as writer and showrunner, the series gives these detectives room to be awkward without making them compete over who is most damaged. The restless editing can distract from performances that would hold our attention without it. That is our caveat about a police drama we rate highly: sometimes we would prefer a little less assistance.
Secor stayed with Bayliss for all seven seasons and the 2000 television film, allowing the character to develop over a substantial stretch of work. He also directed three episodes between 1997 and 1999, retaining the programme’s handheld, character-led style. These are credits within an established series, and we would be cautious about claiming a distinct directorial voice from them. His acting gives us considerably more to judge, and it is where our recommendation rests.
After Homicide, recurring and guest roles became the pattern. Commander in Chief (2005) cast him as Rod Calloway, the First Gentleman opposite Geena Davis; in The Purge: Election Year (2016), he played Minister Edwidge Owens. Authority figures recur in his work, and he has found it difficult to escape being identified with Bayliss. That association should not be mistaken for a failure of the performance. Start with Homicide, and give him time to become someone whose company is worth the occasional irritation.
Biography
Kyle Secor is an American actor. He is known for portraying Detective Tim Bayliss on the series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), appearing in all 122 episodes, and for directing three episodes of the series.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1957, Secor’s early television work included roles on the soap opera Santa Barbara and the drama St. Elsewhere. He appeared in several films before Homicide, among them City Slickers (1991) and Sleeping with the Enemy (1991).
After the series ended, Secor took guest roles in programmes including Party of Five, Grey’s Anatomy, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds and The Flash.
