September 8, 2006
BUT BLEAKER:
"The Wire": The best TV show no one's watching (Mary Park, 9/08/06, The Seattle Times)
"The Wire" is perhaps the least formulaic police procedural of all time, more Victorian novel than "CSI." It follows, roughly speaking, a police unit on the trail of a drug gang, but that's like saying "Bleak House" deals with a very long lawsuit. Together with writing partners such as former Baltimore cop Ed Burns and crime novelists George Pelecanos, Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, writer/producer David Simon draws on his experiences as a police reporter to create a world of striking richness and complexity. The show's depiction of inner-city despair is more realistic, both practically and morally, than anything else on TV. (So realistic, in fact, that a drug ring in Queens reportedly used the show as a handbook on how to avoid arrest.)In "The Wire's" universe, there are no good guys or bad guys, no ends neatly tied up. None of the characters are likable in a conventional sense, and there's no telling when one of your favorites might take a dirt nap. The plotting is labyrinthine, the pace almost slow. Every conversation is important, and there are no flashbacks or voice-overs to help sort out the connections. Considering the show's huge cast of characters, their thick "Ballmer" accents and drug-dealer slang, it's as if Simon and company were daring us not to keep up.
The problem with a description like this one is that it makes the show sound like broadcast spinach: Watch it because it's good for you. But make no mistake, "The Wire" is hugely entertaining. Give it your full attention, and the effort pays off with sharp, subtle writing, gallows humor and the kind of quirky details that make Simon's Baltimore come alive. It's safe to say no other cop show critiques the war on drugs, the Iraq conflict, even capitalism itself, while also featuring a shotgun-toting gay stick-up man who whistles "The Farmer in the Dell" on his way to a hit.
In this era of celebrity-driven media culture, "The Wire" is also remarkable as an ensemble effort. There's not a well-known name in the cast, just some of the most interesting (and interesting-looking) character actors around.
Cops and Killers Battle in Baltimore (JOHN DEVORE, September 8, 2006, NY Sun)
"The Wire" is a life-and-death ballet of multiple storylines that dovetail and climax over the course of a single season. Each episode is an exercise in inspired plotting, eschewing cliffhangers and other TV drama devices designed to keep viewers coming back. It's a series that one must consume whole; watching it ad hoc will prove frustrating. But watching it unfold episode by episode is like staring at one of Georges Seurat's pointillist paintings by focusing on one dot, then slowly stepping back until each dot eventually reveals itself as a part of a complete painting.Each season of "The Wire" observes the urban wasteland of west Baltimore, and the cops and robbers who ply their trade there. But the series' creators aren't satisfied with something that simplistic, and while "The Wire" is firmly a show about badges and bad guys, it's more a vast social commentary, a fictional record of the shadow cast by the colossus known as the United States of America.
The drug trade, labor unions, and the courtly intrigue of municipal bureaucracy account, in that order, for the story up to the point where the fourth season takes off. The upcoming season, which makes its premiere Sunday at 10 p.m., tackles the education system, painting it as a heartbreaking theater of war, where the stakes are nothing short of the future of our society.
I discovered "The Wire" this summer through a mix of "Jack Dunphy," Nat'l Review's LA cop/columnist, and Netflix. The language upsets my fine, sensitive wife but since I spent four years USMC I barely notice. The story sucks you in and I am eagerly awaiting my disks for season two. No cable where I live.
Posted by: Jim Burke at September 8, 2006 9:06 AMJust finished watching the rerun of Season 3 on HBO.
Can't wait for Sunday night. Tho I'll have to watch the HBOWest showing since the Jints are on -- and the ABC 9/11 miniseries.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at September 8, 2006 10:39 AMMary Park thinks there's a thicket of thick Baltimore accents on The Wire? Maybe one or two higher-ups have 'em, or the occasional beat cop (most likely cast from Baltimore AFTRA), but they are rare. Most of the characters try to squash a Brooklyn accent sideways and pass it off as Ballmer. Too bad. One main character, McNulty, is played by an actor who normally speaks with a pronounced British accent. If he could imitate NY like he does, it is certain he could mimic the grating manner of Eastern MD/DE/PA!
Jon Polito, who starred in Homicide: Life on the Streets, is from Philadelphia (whose citizens are cursed with an identical accent to those from Balto). He tells a story that he was auditioning for the show, laying his native accent on thick, and the producer (Attanasio, I believe) told him _not_ to. So much for authenticity. He ended up using a modified NY/Brooklyn accent for the character.
Stringer was a Brit (or Jamaican or whatever) too--saw him on an Inspector Lynley mystery.
Posted by: oj at September 8, 2006 11:33 AMThanks for the tip.
The quality of TV dramas the has become so good lately it's amazing.
Posted by: Gideon at September 8, 2006 2:58 PMThe Sleuth channel had an EZ Streets marathon last week; It was as good as The Wire, but CBS cancelled it after 10 episodes.
Posted by: Mike Beversluis at September 8, 2006 3:57 PMHow much more excitement can we old folks take? 'Prison Break' leaves me exhausted and the 'CSI' quartet over-sates my desire to view human innards. My husband, whose judgment is normally excellent, has become mesmerized by abnormal flopping lips (must be a guy thing), so we've started taping 'The Closer.'
'24' and 'Lost' haven't even started the new season yet and I already long for the good old days before the new-fangled taping device when I eschewed television completely. Now I am consumed by worry about Jack Bauer's health not only because of the danger from the bad guys, but because of his atrocious eating and sleeping habits and his seeming inability to notice how unattractive and preternaturally skeletal is his lady friend.
Yet I wouldn't give up 'House' (hated the first episode of the new season, though) or 'Hustle' or even the occasionally funny, 'Monk.'
Perhaps I'll order 'The Wire' from Netflix after we finish the 'Upstairs/Downstairs' marathon which we are enjoying immensely. Each episode is a treasure in itself. They're so good, my husband commented that he feels like a voyeur.
Upstairs, Downstairs, now that was a show.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at September 8, 2006 7:10 PMDid anyone else watch the two half-hour "making of" specials on HBO? The producers seemed to lean toward drug legalization. The Baltimore school principal thinks more money for public schools is the answer. And the local politicians sound like huckster salesmen trying to convince the viewer that Baltimore is a wonderful place. It was unintended satire at it's finest.
If you have watched them, I like the "stoop kids" vs "corner kids" analogy and solution. Producer and former Baltimore PD/Baltimore teacher Ed Burns told the principal at his school that there were two types of kids. Stoop kids (the majority) stay on the rowhouse stoop when the parent(s) tell them to. Corner kids go hang out on the corner where they mix with all the wrong people. Since the corner kids cause most of the problems in class, they decided to seperate them from the rest of the students so that the other children can enjoy a normal classroom environment. The school principal said it worked. Try that in a suburban mixed race school and the charges of racism would make headlines nationwide. Vouchers can't come soon enough.
Posted by: Patrick H at September 8, 2006 7:19 PM