Eric Overmyer, who has died aged 74, from complications of Parkinson’s disease, was the epitome of what has become known, in the era of streamed episodic television, as a showrunner: a combination writer and producer who has creative control over the series. He is best known for his work with David Simon, creator of Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire and Treme, and for adapting the crime writer Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels into one of Amazon Prime’s first streaming series, Bosch, which premiered in 2014.
Connelly, who had managed to buy back the film rights to his character, knew success with this new idea of streaming would require a special adaptor. He and his producing partner were “halfway through our sales pitch when Eric cut us off and said, ‘I don’t know if you are auditioning me or I am auditioning you, but I’m in.’ We went on to make 98 episodes of one of the best detective stories ever told on television. It wouldn’t have happened without Eric.”
